PayPal
An online wallet that lets you pay or send money with an email address instead of a card number.
PayPal is one of the oldest online payment companies. It came from the 2000 merger of two late-1990s startups: Confinity, founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and others, and X.com, founded by Elon Musk. The auction site eBay bought it in 2002, when it was already the favorite way to pay for eBay items, and spun it off as a separate company again in 2015.
The idea: you link your card or bank account to a PayPal account once. After that, to pay a shop you just log in to PayPal and confirm, and to send money to a person you only need their email address or phone number. The shop or the other person gets paid, but never sees your card number. If something you bought never arrives, PayPal has a buyer protection process to dispute the payment.
It makes money by charging fees, mostly to merchants on each payment they receive, and on things like international transfers and currency conversion. It also owns Venmo, a person-to-person payment app popular in the United States. Newer rivals such as Stripe, Apple Pay and the instant payment systems that many countries now run cover similar ground, but PayPal remains a familiar checkout button in many parts of the world.
Keep in mind
- Born from the 2000 merger of Confinity and Elon Musk's X.com; owned by eBay 2002 to 2015.
- You pay with an email and password; the shop never sees your card.
- Charges fees mostly to merchants, plus international transfers and conversions.
- Also owns Venmo, a person-to-person payment app.
