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Foundation
Peter Thiel et al established Confinity, a company that developed security software for handheld devices. -
Restructuring
- Merged to X.com on March 2000.
- On October 2000, Peter Thiel replaced Elon Musk as the CEO.
- The company was then renamed as PayPal in 2001.
- Shortly after, PayPal had its Initial Public Offering (IPO) on early 2002.
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Acquisition
Ebay acquired PayPal in July 2002 for 1.5 billion. -
Payment Competitors
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. -
Cyber Security
PayPal acquired the VeriSign payment solution in 2005 to expand its e-commerce business and provide added security support. -
Fraud Issue
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. -
Offline/Mobile Payment
- PayPal decided to begin moving its business offline so that customers can make payments via PayPal in stores.
- In 2013, PayPal acquired IronPearl, a Palo Alto startup offering engagement software, and Braintree, a Chicago-based payment gateway, to further product development and mobile services.
- The product is called PayPal Here.
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Spin off Ebay
It was announced that eBay would spin off PayPal into a separate publicly traded company. -
Digital money transfers.
- PayPal announced that it was acquiring digital money transfer company Xoom Corporation.
- This allowed PayPal to access 1.3 million active U.S. customers.
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Mobile Money Transfer
- PayPal launched their peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platform "PayPal.Me”.
- Services that allows users to send a custom link to request funds via text, email, or other messaging platforms.
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PayPal Here vs Square
- Apple Pay
- NFC
