PayPal Inc Reviews 2025

PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) is an American multinational financial technology company operating a global online payments system. It serves as a digital alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders, allowing users to securely send and receive money and pay for goods and services online. As of 2024-2025, it remains one of the world's largest and most recognized internet payment companies, with hundreds of millions of active accounts worldwide.

The company aims to democratize financial services, empowering people and businesses to join and thrive in the global economy.

Brief History

• Founding: PayPal was established in December 1998 as Confinity, which later merged with X.com, an online banking company founded by Elon Musk.

• The eBay Era: It grew rapidly as the primary payment method on the auction site eBay, which acquired PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

• Spin-Off: In 2015, PayPal was spun off from eBay to become an independent, publicly traded company again, allowing it to pursue a more aggressive growth strategy across the entire web.

• The "PayPal Mafia": Many of its early founders and employees, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Reid Hoffman, went on to found other highly successful technology companies like Tesla, SpaceX, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Core Products and Services

PayPal's ecosystem is divided into services for individual consumers and solutions for businesses.

For Consumers:

• Digital Wallet: The core product. Users link their bank, credit, and debit cards to their PayPal accounts. They can then pay for items online without revealing their card numbers to every merchant.

• Online Checkout: The ubiquitous "Pay with PayPal" button on e-commerce websites offers a fast and secure checkout process. This includes Buyer Protection, which can reimburse a user if an item doesn't arrive or is significantly not as described.

• Person-to-Person (P2P) Payments: Users can send money to friends and family. In many regions, transfers funded by a bank account or PayPal balance are free, while those funded by a credit card incur a small fee.

• Xoom: A PayPal service specifically designed for international money transfers and remittances, allowing users to send money to friends and family in other countries for bank deposit or cash pickup.

For Businesses:

• PayPal Checkout Integration: Allows merchants of all sizes to accept payments on their websites easily. It supports payments from PayPal balances, bank accounts, and credit/debit cards.

• Braintree: A subsidiary of PayPal, Braintree is a more advanced payment gateway for e-commerce businesses. It allows merchants to accept payments directly on their site or app (as opposed to being redirected to PayPal's page) and supports a wider range of payment methods, including credit/debit cards, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, and local payment methods.

• PayPal Invoicing: A feature that allows freelancers and small businesses to create and send professional invoices that clients can pay with a credit card or PayPal account.

• PayPal Zettle: A point-of-sale (POS) solution for in-person transactions. It includes a mobile card reader and a POS app that enables small businesses to accept chip & PIN and contactless payments.

Key Subsidiaries

PayPal has expanded its reach by acquiring several key companies:

• Venmo: A hugely popular P2P payment app in the United States, known for its social feed feature. While less common in Israel, it's a major part of PayPal's portfolio.

• Braintree: As mentioned, a leading payment processor for online and mobile commerce.

• Xoom: Its international remittance arm.