PayPal Holdings, In is an American company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfer, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.
Established in 1998 as Confinity,PayPal went public through an initial public offering in 2002. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay later that year, valued at $1.5 billion.In 2015, eBay spun off PayPal to eBay's shareholders and PayPal became an independent company again.The company was ranked 204th on the 2019 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
On October 21, 2020, PayPal announced a new service allowing customers to use cryptocurriencies to shop at 26 million merchants on the network starting in 2021. Paypal has been using Paxos Trust to provide the back end infrastructure allowing users to manage and trade cryptocurrencies in accordance to data privacy rules and financial regulations. Pathos has been in charge of acquiring the necessary regulatory approvals for Paypal to facilitate cryptocurrency assets. As part of the announcement, PayPal secured the first conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, which will allow customers to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash.