pypl founded december 1998 ; 17 years ago 1998 12 as confinity predecessor s confinity headquarters 2211 north first street san jose california united states 95131 coordinates 37 22 37 n 121 55 21 w 37.3770 n 121.9226 w 37.3770 ; 121.9226 coordinates 37 22 37 n 121 55 21 w 37.3770 n 121.9226 w 37.3770 ; 121.9226 area served worldwide founder s max levchin peter thiel luke nosek ken howery key people john donahoe chairman daniel schulman ceo industry financial services products credit cards payment systems revenue us 9.24 billion 2015 1 operating income us 0.76 billion 2016 1 profit us 1.22 billion 2015 1 total assets us 10.88 billion 2016 1 total equity us 20.75 billion 2016 1 employees 15 800 2015 1 parent ebay 2002 2014 subsidiaries braintree paydiant venmo paypal credit xoom corporation website www.paypal.com written in c 2 javascript as node.js 3 python 4 alexa rank 45 august 2016 update 5 advertising no registration yes users 188 million 2016 available in multilingual launched december 1998 1998 12 current status active native client s on ios android windows paypal s corporate headquarters in san jose california ebay paypal kijiji and stubhub in toronto paypal holdings inc. is an american company operating a worldwide online payments system . online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders . paypal is one of the world s largest internet payment companies . 6 the company operates as a payment processor for online vendors auction sites and other commercial users for which it charges a fee . established in 1998 7 paypal had its ipo in 2002 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of ebay later that year . 8 9 in 2014 paypal moved 228 billion in 26 currencies across more than 190 nations generating a total revenue of 7.9 billion 44 % of ebay s total profits . 10 the same year ebay announced plans to spin off paypal into an independent company by mid 2015 and this was completed on july 18 2015 . 11 on july 20 2015 paypal had its second ipo that valued the company at 46.6 billion . 12 contents 1 history 1.1 early history 1.2 ebay subsidiary 2002 2014 1.3 spin off from ebay 1.4 acquisition of xoom corporation 1.5 paypal.me 2 offices 3 services 3.1 business model evolution 3.1.1 phase 1 3.1.2 phase 2 3.1.3 phase 3 3.2 local restrictions 3.2.1 japan 3.2.2 india 3.2.3 crimea 3.2.4 turkey 3.2.5 palestine 4 regulation 5 safety and protection policies 6 security 6.1 security token 6.2 mtan 7 fraud 7.1 150 000 paypal cards frozen 7.2 paypal mycash reloadable card embezzlement 8 criticism 9 litigation 9.1 cfpb consent 10 see also 11 references 12 external links history edit further information timeline of paypal early history edit paypal was established in december 1998 as confinity 13 a company that developed security software for handheld devices 14 founded by max levchin peter thiel luke nosek and ken howery . 13 15 paypal was developed and launched as a money transfer service at confinity in 1999 funded by john malloy from bluerun ventures . 16 17 in march 2000 confinity merged with x.com an online banking company founded by elon musk . 18 musk was optimistic about the future success of the money transfer business confinity was developing . 19 musk and then president and ceo of x.com bill harris disagreed on this point and harris left the company in may 2000 . 19 in october of that year musk made the decision that x.com would terminate its other internet banking operations and focus on the paypal money service . 20 the x.com company was then renamed paypal in 2001 21 and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take paypal public in 2002 . 15 22 paypal s ipo listed under the ticker pypl at 13 per share and ended up generating over 61 million . 23 ebay subsidiary 2002 2014 edit shortly after paypal s ipo the company was acquired by ebay in july 2002 for 1.5 billion . 20 24 25 more than 70 percent of all ebay auctions accepted paypal payments and roughly 1 in 4 closed auction listings were transacted via paypal . 26 paypal became the payment method used by a majority of ebay users it was also the default choice and the service competed with ebay s subsidiary billpoint as well as citibank s c2it yahoo s paydirect google checkout and western union s bidpay service all of which closed in subsequent years . paypal acquired the verisign payment solution in 2005 to expand its e commerce business and provide added security support . 27 28 in 2007 paypal announced a partnership with mastercard that led to the development and launch of the paypal secure card service a software that allows customers to make payments on websites that do not accept paypal directly by generating a unique single use mastercard number for each checkout . 29 by the end of 2007 the company generated 1.8 billion in revenue . 30 in january 2008 paypal acquired fraud sciences a privately held israeli start up company with expertise in online risk tools for 169 million in order to enhance paypal s proprietary fraud management systems . 31 in november 2008 the company acquired bill me later an online payments company offering transactional credit at over 9000 online merchants in the us . 32 paypal revenues for q1 2009 were 643 million up 11 percent year over year . 42 percent of revenues in q1 2009 were from international markets . paypal s total payment volume tpv the total value of transactions in q1 2009 was nearly 16 billion up 10 percent year over year . 33 by 2010 paypal had over 100 million active user accounts in 190 markets through 25 different currencies . 34 in july 2011 fourteen alleged members of the anonymous hacktivist group were charged with attempting to disrupt paypal s operations . the denial of service attacks occurred in december 2010 after paypal stopped processing donations to wikileaks . on december 5 2013 13 of the paypal 14 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges related to the attacks . 35 36 the company continued to focus on international growth and growth of its merchant services division providing e payments for retailers on ebay . in 2011 paypal announced that it would begin moving its business offline so that customers can make payments via paypal in stores . 37 in august 2012 the company announced its partnership with discover card to allow paypal payments to be made at any of the 7 million stores in discover card s network . 38 by the end of 2012 paypal s total payment volume processed was us 145 000 000 000 . 39 and accounted for 40 % of ebay s revenue amounting to us 1 370 000 000 in the 3rd quarter of 2012 . 40 in 2013 paypal acquired ironpearl a palo alto startup offering engagement software 41 and braintree a chicago based payment gateway to further product development and mobile services . 42 in june 2014 david marcus announced he was leaving his role 43 as paypal president ; marcus joined paypal in august 2011 after its acquisition of zong of which he was the founder and ceo . 44 david marcus succeeded scott thompson as president who left the role to join yahoo . 44 paypal announced that marcus would be succeeded by dan schulman who previously served as ceo of virgin mobile and executive vice president of american express . 45 spin off from ebay edit it was announced on september 30 2014 that ebay would spin off paypal into a separate publicly traded company a move demanded in 2013 by activist hedge fund magnate carl icahn . the spin off was completed on july 18 2015 . 46 47 48 dan schulman is the current president and ceo with former ebay ceo john donahoe serving as chairman . 45 acquisition of xoom corporation edit on july 1 2015 paypal announced that it was acquiring digital money transfer company xoom corporation . paypal spent 25 a share in cash to acquire the publicly traded xoom or about 1.09 billion . the deal was closed in the fourth quarter of 2015 . the move strengthened paypal s international business giving it access to xoom s 1.3 million active u.s. customers that sent about 7 billion in the 12 months ending on march 31 to people in 37 countries . 49 50 paypal.me edit on september 1 2015 paypal launched their peer to peer payment platform paypal.me a service that allows users to send a custom link to request funds via text email or other messaging platforms . 51 custom links are set to be structured as paypal.me username amountrequested . 51 paypal.me was launched in 18 countries including united states united kingdom germany australia canada russia turkey france italy spain poland sweden belgium norway denmark netherlands austria and switzerland . 52 paypal had 170 million users as of september 2015 and the focus of paypal.me was to create a mobile first user experience that enables faster payment sharing than paypal s traditional tools . 51 in june 2016 it was announced that paypal had joined the fortune 500 for the first time . 53 offices edit paypal operations center and main office in omaha ne paypal s corporate headquarters are located in san jose california 40 at north first street campus . 54 the company s operations center is located in omaha nebraska which opened in 1999 . 55 56 since july 2007 paypal has operated across the european union as a luxembourg based bank . the paypal european headquarters are located in luxembourg and the international headquarters are in singapore . paypal opened a technology center in scottsdale arizona in 2006 57 and a software development center in chennai india in 2007 . 58 in october 2007 paypal opened a data service office on the north side of austin texas 59 and also opened a second operations center in la vista nebraska that same year . 55 in 2011 joining similar customer support operations located in berlin germany chandler arizona dublin ireland omaha nebraska and shanghai china paypal opened a second customer support center in kuala lumpur malaysia and began the hiring process . 60 in 2014 paypal opened a new global center of operations in kuala lumpur malaysia 61 services edit as of 2016 update paypal operates in 202 markets and has 188 million active registered accounts . paypal allows customers to send receive and hold funds in 25 currencies worldwide . 6 62 paypal s services allow people to make financial transactions online by granting the ability to transfer funds electronically between individuals and businesses . 63 through paypal users can send or receive payments for online auctions on websites like ebay purchase or sell goods and services or donate money or receive donations . it is not necessary to have a paypal account to use the company s services . 63 from 2009 to 2016 paypal operated student accounts allowing parents to set up a student account transfer money into it and obtain a debit card for student use . the program provides tools to teach how to spend money wisely and take responsibility for actions . 64 65 paypal discontinued student accounts in august 2016 . in november 2009 paypal opened its platform allowing other services to get access to its code and to use its infrastructure in order to enable peer to peer online transactions . 66 in 2008 paypal acquired the online credit product bill me later inc. which has since been rebranded as paypal credit and provides services for comenity capital bank the lender of paypal credit accounts . founded in 2000 bill me later is headquartered in timonium maryland with additional offices in hunt valley maryland chandler arizona