PayPal - The Global Payments System That Revolutionized Online Purchase

The Humble Beginning

PayPal was initially named Confinity.

The first iteration of Confinity's vision was : to provide secure software for online financial transactions.

Confinity soon changed path to being a company focused on creating a digital wallet for online payments, a service that was as pioneering as the internet back then.

Then came the merger with X.com, an online banking company.

Despite the merger, Confinity's online payment services had more potential to grow and was left untouched.

From here, PayPal basically stayed the course of providing online payment services for its lifetime.

A Wallet For Your Personal and Business Needs

Where online purchase is concerned, you will always go through PayPal at a certain point at checkout.

Even without the presence of a credit card, with available balance within your PayPal account, you can always use this PayPal wallet to buy things online.

Some websites are also set up with PayPal's easy to use 'buy' button for a fast and secure payment of listed items.

Paying Others Through Email

PayPal invented a payment function ahead of its time during its early days. Payment can be done to emails.

Just send a payment to someone's email and the receiving party will get the funds, as long as such accounts are already registered with PayPal.

No PayPal account? PayPal's auto-generated email will prompt the user to register one for free to receive the payment.

Acquiring To Achieve Perfection

Over the years, PayPal acquired a few companies that are closely-related to the industry it belongs to.

Such acquisitions encompassed the categories of payments security, credit card payments, transactional credit, product development and much more.

And these, contributed to PayPal becoming a fast, secure and trusted online payments provider it is today.

Spinning Off Complications

Certain investors also prevented the downfall of PayPal one point in time.

Being a payments company that's well-known around the world, PayPal's valuation had already surpassed eBay's despite being acquired by the latter.

The difference in their business models were starting to catch all kinds of attention, good and bad.

Then came the question: If PayPal as a global payments provider continued to operate under an auction website like eBay, will it be appropriate?

The spin-off was inevitable.

PayPal continued to grow as a payments provider once it returned to being its own entity.

Future Outlook

Rising stars like Wise that provides multiple currency wallets and handles transfers at low cost, are snatching some of PayPal's dominance in the market.

However, none can deny that PayPal has the widest service coverage in the world in terms of online payments.

Also, wherever people travel to, when they notice the PayPal sign, it is a mark of confidence that their purchases are swift and secure.

PayPal makes online payments a better place, and they have done it since the beginning.