PayPal World Debuts: UPI Goes Global in Cross-Border Payments Revolution

PayPal has just announced a major leap in global payments with the launch of PayPal World, a cross-border platform that integrates India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—a move poised to reshape international commerce.

What Is PayPal World?

A global interoperability platform connecting major digital wallets and payment systems.

Launch partners include:

• NPCI International Payments Limited (India’s UPI operator)
• Tenpay Global (Tencent’s Weixin Pay, China)
• Mercado Pago (Latin America)
• Venmo (PayPal’s social payments app)

UPI Goes Global

• UPI, which accounts for 85% of India’s retail digital payments, will now be usable for international transactions via PayPal World.

Indian users can:

• Pay on foreign e-commerce sites using UPI.
• Send money abroad without needing cards or remittance apps.
• Use PayPal to pay via UPI in rupees, even when shopping globally.

Key Features

Interoperability: Users can pay using their local wallets across borders.

No extra merchant integration: Businesses automatically accept new wallets added to the platform.

Venmo-PayPal Interoperability: Users can send money between the two globally.

Future-ready: Supports stablecoins, AI-driven shopping, and dynamic payment buttons.

Strategic Implications

• Positions India’s UPI as a blueprint for global digital payments, with ongoing talks in Africa and South America.
• Enhances PayPal’s reach to 2 billion+ users across high-growth markets.
• Bridges fragmented payment infrastructures, simplifying remittances and e-commerce.

PayPal Partners With India's NSDC to Empower Youth With Industry-relevant Skills in Financial Sector

National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has partnered with PayPal to empower youth, including women, from low-income families through skill development across India. As part of PayPal CSR programme, the two organisations formalised their collaboration through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch a comprehensive skill development initiative, specifically targeting India's Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector.

Dr Rishikesh Patankar, Vice President, NSDC and Srini Venkatesan, Global Chief Technology Officer, PayPal, exchanged the MoU in presence of senior members of both the organisations on Friday.

The key objective of the MoU is the economic empowerment for thousands of youth, with a special focus on women from low-income families through skill development. The candidates will be provided livelihood opportunities through skill enhancement, soft skills and personality development training. The training will ensure that they are job-ready.

Dr Rishikesh Patankar said, “At NSDC, our mission is to prepare youth with the essential skills required for employment. This collaboration signifies a major step forward in empowering the youth and women of India to play a vital role in the nation’s progress and development. By providing them with industry-specific skills in the financial sector, we are opening doors to opportunities for meaningful careers and entrepreneurial endeavours."

As per the MoU, specialised training programmes that are National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF)-aligned will be offered to candidates. They will be provided training courses of 420 hours to 480 hours in their respective fintech domains, including Bancassurance Relationship Associate, Customer Service Associate- Financial Services, Sales Associate- Direct Channel, MIS Analyst- Financial Services, GST Assistant and Account Assistant. This will ensure that the candidates receive high-quality training and develop the financial acumen needed to secure a job or embark on their entrepreneurial journey in the sector.

V. Chandramouliswaran , Vice President PayPal India Global Technology centre said “We are delighted to partner with NSDC in this unique initiative which directly supports the Indian Government’s Skill India vision. Collaborating with NSDC allows us to empower Indian youth and women with valuable skills, opening doors to economic opportunity and enabling them to contribute to India's vibrant growth story."

NSDC will implement the project across various districts in the country, including Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Patna (Bihar), Hyderabad (Telangana), Surat (Gujarat), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Mumbai (Maharashtra), and Ranchi (Jharkhand). As of March 11, 2025, candidates are undergoing training across these districts.

NSDC will also support the candidates in their endeavour to secure jobs through its extensive network. It will ensure that at least 70% of the candidates participate in job fairs and interviews. NSDC will also help candidates explore self-employment opportunities.

This partnership is expected to narrow the skill gap in the BFSI sector while supporting budding individuals realise their dreams of making a career in the sector.

PayPal Files Patents for NFT Marketplace, Omniverse and More

Fintech giant PayPal has filed multiple patent applications including the transfer and trading of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), both on and off-chain, within its network.

NFT Marketplace

According to one of the four patent applications, which were filed on March 21, 2022, but only made public on September 21, the system enables “off-chain transaction via an NFT marketplace,” and will allow users to transfer NFTs in their possession to other users on the PayPal.

According to the abstract included in the patent application, “A plurality of digital wallets associated with a service provider are provided with access to the NFT marketplace. The NFT marketplace corresponds to a decentralized blockchain associated with an entity that is different from the service provider.”

Going forward, a decentralized autonomous organization tied to the service provider might be leveraged to enhance NFT liquidity on a dedicated platform.

In addition, fractionalized NFT purchases could also be a possibility of PayPal's proposed NFT ecosystem described in the patent application.

Selection of Validators in  Decentralized Cryptographic Network

In an another patent, PayPal pending patent mentions how validators or miners should be selected during the process of adding transactions to the blockchain. The document states that the company’s disclosed techniques could “advantageously allow steering of blockchain requests to a desired subset of miners/validators.”

The pending patent application discuss techniques relating to selection of miners/ validators in a decentralized cryptographic network. It further says, "In some embodiments, a request to add a transaction to a blockchain includes a cryptographic signature associated with provision of a second transfer fee, in addition to a first transfer fee, to miners/validators who meet a set of one or more criteria. The techniques may advantageously allow steering of blockchain requests to a desired subset of miners/validators.

Omniverse 

The third patent filed by PayPal delves into the concept of a so-called omniverse, which in this context suggests a product that deals in multiple metaverses. PayPal says it developed an “online transaction processor” that would provide recommendations for which digital assets a user should buy based on the user’s blockchain preferences and which metaverses they interact with most.

In early August, PayPal also announced its new dollar-backed stablecoin, PayPal USD ($PYUSD), which marked the first time a major U.S. financial company created this type of digital asset.

Later in the same month, PayPal updated its terms and conditions to introduce its new ‘Cryptocurrencies Hub’ feature, which allows users to hold and interact with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies through their PayPal account.

Online Transaction Processor

The fourth patent filed, and in pending stage, describes another conceptual online transaction processor. The patent application's abstract mentions, "An online transaction processor may provide operations for digital asset recommendations and processing in one or more metaverses. The online transaction processor may determine digital assets available to a user in one or more digital wallets, as well as interactions by the user in one or more metaverses."

This processor’s goal is to facilitate payments between users and merchants operating on different network layers (layer-1s and layer-2s) in a more efficient manner.

A layer 2 refers to any off-chain network, system, or technology built on top of a blockchain (commonly known as a layer-1 network) that helps extend the capabilities of the underlying base layer network.

These multiple patents filings by PayPal comes at time when a latest report suggested that 95% of people holding NFT collections are currently holding onto worthless investments.

PayPal Held Over Half A Billion in Bitcoin, Ethereum Last Quarter

Payments platform Paypal held over half a billion dollars worth of the two largest cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin & Ethereum — as of December 31, 2021, according to its year-end report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

It was in October 2020 when PayPal entered the cryptocurrency market, announcing that its customers will be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and other virtual currencies using their PayPal accounts.

As per SEC filings, PayPal Held $291 million in Bitcoin (BTC), and $250 million in Ethereum (ETH). Besides, another $63 million in assets were held in both Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), bringing PayPal's total crypto held on behalf of its customers to $604 million.

The amount is less than the previous quarter's figures, which logged $694 million in crypto as of September 31, back when Bitcoin traded at $19,400. That was also before the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, which resulted the Bitcoin's price went down to $16,600 by the end of the year.

PayPal mentions in the filing, "We allow our customers in certain markets to buy, hold, sell, receive, and send certain cryptocurrencies as well as use the proceeds from sales of cryptocurrencies to pay for purchases at checkout. These cryptocurrencies consist of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. We engage third parties, which are licensed trust companies, to provide certain custodial services, including holding our customers’ cryptographic key information, securing our customers’ crypto assets, and protecting them from loss or theft, including indemnification against certain types of losses such as theft.

"Our third-party custodian holds the crypto assets in a custodial account in PayPal’s name for the benefit of PayPal’s customers. We maintain the internal recordkeeping of our customers’ crypto assets, including the amount and type of crypto asset owned by each of our customers in that custodial account. Given that we currently utilize one third-party custodian, there is concentration risk in the event the custodian is not able to perform in accordance with our agreement. ", mentions the filing by PayPal.

In June last year, PayPal started allowing users to withdraw their crypto astets to external wallets however just as a host of centralized exchanges and lending firms began to freeze user assets, PayPal too followed the knack. 

Besides these, recently it was reported that Paypal is exploring the creation of a stablecoin.“We are exploring a stablecoin,” a Paypal executive told reporters at the time. "If and when we seek to move forward, we will, of course, work closely with relevant regulators."

PayPal's P2P Payment service Venmo Launches Crypto Buying and Selling

Venmo, the peer-to-peer payment service owned by PayPal Holdings Inc, said on Tuesday it has started allowing users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies on its app, a step that could inspire more mainstream adoption of the asset class.

enmo users will be able to buy bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash for as little as $1 and publish transactions on the app's feed, the company said.

With more than 70 million customers, Venmo is one of the most popular payment apps in the United States, especially among younger consumers who use it to pay friends and family. It processed around $159 billion in payments last year.

California-based PayPal has become one of the most active mainstream financial companies in cryptocurrencies.

In October, it began allowing users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in its digital wallets and last month it started allowing customers to spend their virtual coins at millions of merchants globally.

These launches helped to fuel a rally in virtual currencies. Bitcoin has soared nearly 90% since the start of this year, boosted by interest from larger financial firms betting on its greater adoption and use as a hedge against inflation.

Venmo's crypto launch also coincides with increased competition in the U.S. peer-to-peer payments sector.

Square Inc's rival Cash App, which has allowed cryptocurrency purchases since 2018, has seen user growth boom over the last year. Other financial technology startups popular with young consumers, such as broker Robinhood also allow crypto buying and selling.

More than 30% of Venmo customers have purchased crypto or equities, 20% of which started buying during the pandemic, the 2020 Venmo Customer Behavior Study found.

"Our goal is to provide our customers with an easy-to-use platform that simplifies the process of buying and selling cryptocurrencies and demystifies some of the common questions and misconceptions that consumers may have," Darrell Esch, Venmo senior vice president and general manager, said.

Crypto on Venmo is enabled through PayPal's partnership with Paxos Trust Company, a regulated provider of cryptocurrency products and services.

The Advantages of Paying Online with Skrill

Online shopping is not a new trend in the business industry. Indeed, thanks to its many advantages, it’s becoming the norm in the shopping world. People can easily find the things they need, usually at a discount price. Like that’s not enough, shopping sites offer to deliver to your door for free or charge you a very small amount of money. Given the fact that people don’t have the time to spend hours shopping in a mall anymore, online shopping is like a rescue for their lives. They save money, time, and most importantly, they get the same product they would buy in any shop in the shopping mall.

The rise of online shopping brought to the fact that online sites need to offer more payment methods. To ensure a pleasant shopping experience, online sites give you the possibility to choose from a variety of payment methods. It has never been easier to place an order online and pay for it using an online payment method. PayPal was for a long time the only online payment options and its advantages no one can deny. However, a relatively new payment method also offers to pay online with excellent customer support.

About Skrill

Skrill was launched back in 2001. Its main goal was to simplify the procedure of online payment, as well as online money transfers. By the time, Skrill has revolutionized online payment, widening the number of services they provide customers with. Skrill is known for its fast processing of new transactions. Nowadays, Skrill has more than 120.000 users worldwide, which goes hand-in-hand with top payment methods, such as PayPal. To make online processing more efficient, Skrill connects your account with a MasterCard to make purchases with e-wallet easier for all users. 

Entertainment Payment with Skrill

Skrill is becoming a popular online payment for casino services. Indeed, more and more casino sites accept Skrill as a payment method. In fact, the number of Indian casinos accepting Neteller payments is constantly growing. When it comes to online casino gaming, Skrill is a very efficient payment method because many countries worldwide accept it, it’s very convenient and processes payment in no time. It’s easy to use, it’s available at your fingertips and it’s a very safe payment method.

Things that the customers need the most when paying online are the possibility to have accounts in different currencies, credit and debit cards connected to the bank account, transferring money from a bank account online, and many others. A payment method that does pretty much all of these things, and much more than that, is Skrill. While the competition out there is very strong, Skrill is still a big contender in the online payment tools. 

Skrill Online Business Payments

Skrill is the option to go with when you need an account that is an all-in-one place where you can perform all different kinds of payment and money transfers. One of the advantages of Skrill is that it is a very international payment method, available in more than 200 countries. Skrill accounts can be both private and business accounts, according to the personal needs or the needs of your business company. Sending money to another account is completely free of charge. On top of that, Skrill sends directly the money to the receiver’s account for a very short amount of time. You can use both debit and credit cards to perform online payments.

Online Transfers

Transferring money to a bank account connected with an email address or a phone number has never been easier with Skrill. Those in need of buying and selling crypto will find Skrill a useful payment tool. Now, Skrill applications can be downloaded from the app store on any smartphone device, no matter whether it uses iOS or Android operating systems. It’s a very customer-friendly app that makes online payment a piece of cake for online buyers.

PayPal's Xoom adds UPI payments enabling NRIs and PIOs to remit money to India in real time

Innovative UPI integration to help with increased convenience and grow international remittances into India

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Xoom, PayPal's international digital money transfer service announced its integration with NPIL's/NPCI's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a real-time payment system facilitating inter-bank transactions in India. Non-Residential Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) living in the United States (US), Canada and Europe can now remit money to their family and friends in India. Using UPI to send money to India via Xoom is easier as overseas senders only need to know Indian receivers' UPI identity (ID) to send remittances instantly, 24 by 7 and 365 days of the year. 

Xoom adds UPI payments for NRIs and PIOs to remit money to India in real time.

This new service offers more choice, convenience to Xoom customers and enables Indian diaspora to easily transfer money back home–securely and seamlessly. UPI is a payment mechanism which allows money transfers without having to source or share bank account details. Instead of bank account numbers and IFSC codes, the virtual payment address (VPA) is used to pay when customers send money via UPI. Another benefit of UPI is that one UPI ID works for many bank accounts; recipients of money transfers can link multiple bank accounts to receive payments and even set their default bank account for transactions.

The number of Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based payments hit a new milestone in October crossing two billion (207 crore) transactions amounting to transactions worth US$ 444,644 (INR ₹3.3 lakh crore), according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)1.

"Xoom is a pioneer in creating fast, innovative and secure digital money transfers. Real-time payments via UPI in India have been a critical and essential payment tool during the pandemic and emerged as one of the most popular payments method in the country," shared Julian King, Vice President and General Manager, Xoom. "India is an important market for us. We are delighted that Indian diaspora across many markets can now use UPI to send remittances back their loved ones back home with Xoom."

Xoom customers can use UPI payments to remit money to 66 banks across India, including leading banks like State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, Andhra, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Indian Bank, Axis Bank, Canara Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Federal Bank.

World Bank data2 reveals that India's burgeoning population of NRIs and PIOs makes it the top market for remittances globally. India is a focus market for Xoom. The average transaction value of money sent to India via the service is four times higher compared to most other countries.


A pioneer in digital remittances, Xoom is a fast and secure way to send money, pay bills and reload phones for loved ones in over 160 countries globally. These remittances serve as a lifeline for many people around the world and are used to pay for things like utility bills, healthcare, education costs and emergencies.

About PayPal
PayPal has remained at the forefront of the digital payment revolution for more than 20 years. By leveraging technology to make financial services and commerce more convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is empowering more than 350 million consumers and merchants in more than 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit paypal.com.

PayPal Media Contact:
Malini Mitra, Director, Communications, Xoom, a PayPal service, malini.mitra@paypal.com


1 Source: https://www.livemint.com/industry/banking/upi-transactions-cross-200-crore-mark-in-october-11604216584061.html, October 2020.
2 http://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/R8_Migration%26Remittances_brief32.pdf, 2020


 

















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PayPal Plans to Roll Out Direct Sales of Cryptocurrency

PayPal, along with Venmo - its mobile payment service, is reportedly planning to offer direct sales of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to its 300 million+ users globally, said a report by Coindesk, citing three people privy to the matter. Notably, PayPal has a longstanding business relationship with Coinbase.

According to the report, PayPal is looking to offer buying and selling of crypto and said the service could be expected "in the next three months, maybe sooner.".

Citing a well-placed industry source, the report said that Paypal is going to allow "buys and sells of crypto" directly from PayPal and Venmo and may have some sort of a built-in wallet functionality so one can store cryptocurrencies in there.

About Paypal subsidiary, Venmo, it alone handled US$12 billion in transactions in the first quarter of 2018. Venmo is a type of peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platform with a mobile app that enables sending money easily among friends. It required No credit card, no wallet, no fees besides just linking the app to a debit card and to spend'em.

It is unclear which or how many cryptocurrencies would be available, said the report further.The industry source, as per Coindesk, said they expected PayPal "would be working with multiple exchanges to source liquidity."

As of the end of 2019, PayPal had 305 mmillion active users, whereas Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the U.S., has 11.7 million users. And Binance, one of the world’s largest, has only 15 million.

Notably, in October last year Paypal had withdrew itself from Libra Association, the Facebook-initiated crypto project, to instead “continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations."

With Coinbase, which is also a crypto-exchange, PayPal has a partnership that allows users (in North America and Europe) to withdraw and deposit cash between the two platforms.

In an interview with CoinDesk earlier this year, PayPal Chief Technology Officer Sri Shivananda said the company wanted its own “perspective and view on [blockchain] technology itself to see how it can help us contribute to the concept of creating an open digital payments platform that can serve everyone.”

PayPal unveils Adoption Assistance Programme offering upto ₹1 Lakh per Adoption

Digital payments player PayPal has unveiled a new adoption assistance programme aimed at enhancing the parental support benefits for employees, the company said here on Friday.

"The new policy will offer financial support of upto Rs one lakh per adoption for adoptive parents. This covers reimbursement of adoption expenses such as CARA registration, child placement, foster care and establishment of legal guardianship", a press release said.

PayPal said it offers paid adoption leave of 16 weeks for female employees and paternity leave of two weeks.

The move is a part of the company's endeavour to ensure a work-life balance for employees keeping in mind the evolving family dynamics and work culture.

"At PayPal, fostering an open, diverse and innovation-driven culture is essential for our employees to be at their creative best", PayPal Human Resources Senior Director Jayanthi Vaidyanathan said.

"As part of this effort, we have enhanced our parental support benefits for adoptive parents so they have constant support throughout the process", she said.

The company said parents can also avail counselling assistance or tips on parenting from the Employee Assistance Programme which is in effective from December 2019. PTI VIJ

PayPal Makes its Largest Acquisition of $4 Bn - 'Honey', A Discount Codes and Coupons Finder

Payment firm PayPal has announced today that it is buying Honey for $4 billion. Honey is a website and browser (Chrome & Firefox) extension that lets its users save money by applying discount codes and coupons automatically at checkout. The acquisition, which will mostly in cash, will allow PayPal a leg up in deal discovery.

Los Angeles, US-based Honey was founded in 2012, by Ryan Hudson and George Ruan, and its products -- including the browser extension -- are protected by patents in the U.S. and other countries.

[caption id="attachment_138185" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Honey Co-Founders (L-R) George & Ryan[/caption]

Honey reportedly has about 17 million monthly active users, who are mostly young. Honey has a similar model to that of an affiliate marketing, the company takes a commission from merchants when shoppers use Honey (or its rewards program Honey Gold) to make a purchase. Honey has reportedly saved shoppers over $2 billion to date and generated $100 million in revenue last year.

PayPal, which currently has 300 million users, will add Honey to its own product line, which includes millennial-minded payments app Venmo. While Honey currently works with around 30,000 merchants, PayPal works with about 24 million merchants, and will now be able to offer more targeted coupons to shoppers.

~ Producthunt | Official Honey Blog

PayPal, Temasek Invests $125 Mn in Noida-based Payment Startup Pine Labs

Noida-based point-of-sales (PoS) deploying company Pine Labs has raised $125 million from Temasek, a global investment company headquartered in Singapore and PayPal, the largest Us-based digital payments company. Both Paypal and Temasek have acquired minority stakes in Pine Labs.

Sequoia India, which first invested in Pine Labs in 2009, remains the company’s largest shareholder. This round is followed by the round that Pine Labs had announced in March of this year when it raised $82 million from private equity fund Actis and California-based investment company Altimeter Capital. Till date, the company has raised total of $208 milion in four different rounds including this one.

Founded in 1998 by Rajul Garg, Tarun Upaday, Pine Labs offers a cloud-based PoS payments solutions, allowing merchants to accept credit or debit card payments, as well as latest methods such as e-wallets, QR code payment solutions and unified payments interface (UPI)-based solutions.

Pine Labs plans to use the deep network of Temasek in multiple Asian geographies to help Pine Labs scale up operations in the south east Asian region and further with the technological capabilities of PayPal, Pine Labs is looking to strengthen its tech play as well.

Moreover, as Pine Labs is expanding its product suite by building new layers of services for merchants, banks and other communities in the payment ecosystem, PayPal’s global presence and strong product expertise will make the ally with Pine Labs invaluable.

Speaking on the fresh funding, Lokvir Kapoor, founder of Pine Labs, said, "We’re teaming up with Temasek and PayPal at a time when the Indian payments market is at an inflexion point. The investments will help us move a step closer to our vision for building a world-class merchant-centric payments ecosystem."

With $15 billion worth of transactions processed annually, Pine Labs is used by over 65,000 merchants across India’s retail, e-commerce, electronics, food and beverage, fashion, financial, pharmacy, telecom and airlines industries. The company aims to reach 1 million payment acceptance points in India in the next three to five years.

It may be recalled that just yesterday, an another payment startup Tonetag too raised $10 million from Amazon and Mastercard, along with others.

In February, ICICI bank bank had invested ₹99 Lakhs in Mumbai-based Biometric Payment Startup Tapits.

In January, Grab, a Singapore based on-demand firm, acquired Bangalore-based payments startup iKaaz. Ikaaz’ technology stack encompasses a range of innovations, such as NFC, QR-code, audio-based payments as well as bill payments, online payments and P2P.

Meanwhile, A recent study done by Fallible.co, a security firm working towards escalating the security of tech startups has made some shocking revelations. According to the study, many of the popular Indian startups whose services we avail online possess a potential credit card detail theft for the customers.

The above news was first reported in LiveMint.

Village Capital along with PayPal Launches Applications for Programme Supporting FinTech Startups in India

Village Capital, a leading venture development organization, has launched applications for its FinTech: India 2017 programme, that will find, train and invest in early-stage fintech companies across India. The programme is being supported by PayPal, a leading digital payments company, and FMO, the Dutch development bank.

Despite a surge in the use of mobile payments following demonetization last year, 80 per cent of transactions in India today are still carried out in cash. Approximately 70 million bank accounts across the country are inactive and 19 per cent of the Indian population is unbanked. A credit gap of US$334 billion exists for small and medium sized enterprises across the country, as business owners struggle to find flexible, affordable financial products to help them to manage and grow their businesses.

To address these challenges, Village Capital, in collaboration with PayPal and FMO, is looking to support early-stage fintech ventures building India-specific solutions to the country’s unique challenges in financial inclusion. After an extensive application and selection process, Village Capital will select 12-15 companies to undergo a highly personalized, three-month non-residential programme focused on investment-readiness.

The selected companies will participate in three four-day workshops where they will work with Village Capital’s award-winning investment-readiness curriculum and engage with potential customers, strategic partners, investors, and sector experts. At the end of the programme, the top two companies in the cohort, as selected by their peers, will receive an investment offer of US$50,000 each.

Applications are now open at http://vilcap.com/program/fintech-india-2017/. Startups can apply till Oct. 6th, 2017!

Village Capital is a global venture capital firm that finds, trains and invests in entrepreneurs solving real-world problems. Since 2009, it has invested in over 70 ventures across 15 countries, with 12 profitable exits, and supported hundreds more through our collaborative investment-readiness programs.

Image Source: ShutterStock

Paypal To Invest In 5 More Indian Startups

The global online payment company PayPal has selected five Indian startups – Finbox, Neoeyed, Paymatrix, Scalend and Tybo – for inclusion into its incubator program in Chennai, reports one of the media firms. The startups were selected as part of the fifth round of the company’s Incubation Challenge, which saw participation from 250 startups.

This development came after when in August 2017, to support projects in the field of machine learning, and artificial intelligence, PayPal has opened two innovation labs in India. PayPal, who has labs in the US and Singapore has opened its labs in Bengaluru and Chennai.

According to the reports, the program will offer startups technology counsel,  mentorship, infrastructure support and networking opportunities for both investors and customers. Not only this, the global giant will also pick up a stake in each of the selected startups this year.

Commenting on the development,  Guru Bhat, GM Technology & Head of Engineering – PayPal said, “In its 5th year, the PayPal Incubator has received an overwhelming response with over 250 applications from early stage FinTech startups – a 150% growth from last year, reflecting both the need for an incubation program, as well as the FinTech industry’s potential.”

The incubation program focuses on startups in financial technology as well as adjacencies like loyalty, machine learning, big data, and logistics among others. The program launched four years ago in association with The Indus Entrepreneurs, gives startups access to PayPal’s Technology Center in ChennaiThe jury panel

The jury panel includes prominent names like Guru Bhat, GM Technology & Head of Engineering – PayPal; Anupam Pahuja, MD – PayPal India and Rama Bethmangalkar, Venture Capitalist, formerly with Ventureast.

Earlier in December 2016, GetMeAShop, a Times Internet backed e-commerce platform has partnered with PayPal to enable small merchants to access international markets. Whereas in May 2016, PayPal has tied up with India’s branded hotel room aggregator OYO Rooms. Under the tie-up, PayPal helped OYO Rooms source payments from global consumers and allow Indian users to make international bookings.

PayPal Launches Tech Innovation Lab In Bengaluru And Chennai

To support projects in the field of machine learning, and artificial intelligence, global online payment company PayPal has recently informed that it has opened two innovation labs in India. PayPal, who has labs in the US and Singapore has opened its labs in Bengaluru and Chennai.

Commenting on the development, Mike Todasco, Director of Innovation, PayPal, told ET, “India is a hotbed for innovation given its evolving startup ecosystem, diverse merchant profiles and enormous talent pool. To cater to their needs in the most effective manner, we are delighted to announce the launch of our newest Innovation Lab in India, where the focus will be on fueling new age technology and giving rise to unconventional ideas with the potential to transform the ecosystem we operate in.”

Apart from supporting AI and ML, PayPal Labs will also work on internet-of-things (IoT), software defined radios and wireless communication, virtual and augmented reality, computer vision, penetration testing and robotics.

According to the media reports, the Indian labs will be integrated with the PayPal Incubator, to develop and nurture the next generation of fintech startups.

Earlier in December 2016, GetMeAShop, a Times Internet backed e-commerce platform has partnered with PayPal to enable small merchants to access international markets. Whereas in May 2016, PayPal has tied up with India’s branded hotel room aggregator OYO Rooms. Under the tie-up, PayPal helped OYO Rooms source payments from global consumers and allow Indian users to make international bookings.

Elon Musk Buys His Old X.com Domain From PayPal

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur with a difference. The man isn't just trying to win the rat race but has been actually trying to redefine transportation both on earth as well as in space since a long time now. Musk's Tesla and Space X are his contributions in that very direction. And now, Musk has bought the domain name X.com from his former company, PayPal. Though it still hasn't been specified what he aims to do with it, but since its Musk, it ought to be something big.

To provide some background, long before Tesla and Space X came into picture, Musk was working on his second startup, an online financial services company called X.com. In 2000, X.com ended up merging with Peter Thiel and Max Levchin co-founded Confinity, which was at that time operating with a money transfer service called PayPal. During the merger negotiations, it was decided that the merged entity will be named after Musk's X.com as it had more market recall and recognition when compared to Confinity. However, towards the end, the company ended up being named PayPal, as Musk decided to step down from the company over some disagreements with some top executive members. When PayPal got sold to Ebay for $1.5 billion in the year 2002, Musk earned a fat paycheck of anywhere $160 to $180 million and launched successful business like Space X and Tesla, which are currently valued at around $15 billion and $50 billion, respectively.

The news about Musk buying X.com was first published by Domain Investing and later confirmed by Musk in a tweet. While the amount Musk paid for the domain isn't available, but since a similar domain Z.com sold for around $6.8 million three years ago, we can be sure that it wasn't a cheap purchase.

According to Domain Investing, though X.com is still inactive, but the Whois had switched from PayPal to "private," and the domain has been moved from MarkMonitor to GoDaddy. Commenting on the sale, PayPal sent out a statement to engadget, which said, "we are delighted to sell the domain X.com back to its previous owner, Elon Musk."

Now that the purchase has been made and no further details revealed, all we can do is wait and watch what Musk has planned for X.com.

GetMeAShop Partners with PayPal to Enable Small Merchants to Access International Markets

GetMeAShop, a Times Internet backed e-commerce platform announced that it will enable small and medium merchant’s sell their products in the international market with the help of the PayPal payment system.

GetMeAShop develops 360 degree platforms and solutions that are easy and affordable for people, enabling them to sell their products online through internet and mobile mediums. Currently, GetMeAShop has more than 8000 registered merchants. According to a survey done internally, more than 30% clients wanted to sell internationally; hence GetMeAShop team solidified these partnerships. Through this partnership GetMeAShop will be able to do merchant onboarding with PayPal.

Pushkal Srivastava, Founder and Business Head GetMeAShop is quite enthusiastic about enabling merchants to sell internationally, “We are excited to partner with PayPal to help all our GetMeAShop merchants accept payments internationally. Along with our market leading omni channel technology ecosystem to help them in running their business offline and online;and by making the process completely hassle free, we can now enable and back them for a global footprint. With a deep technology integration and partnership, we will enable paperless on-boarding on the international payment gateway and are confident our existing merchants will make the most of this association while we welcome other businesses to go online with GetMeAShop.com right away!”

Along with enabling payments in a safer & more secure manner, PayPal offers Seller Protection which will protect the merchants online sales, minimize claims and chargebacks and help prevent merchant fraud . This is particularly important for small merchants selling in the global marketplace.

Speaking on the partnership, Himanshu Rajpal, Director Paypal, Small & Medium Business said, “Our partnership with GetMeAShop is in line with our vision to enable small businesses to sell globally. PayPal, backed by a strong risk and security infrastructure, presence across 200+ markets and a base of 192 million active consumer accounts is uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in enabling these merchants access international markets and transact in a safe & secure manner.

GetMeAShop is striving to live by the vision “Technology for Everyone”. Also, after the government’s demonetization move, merchants are showing an increased interest towards setting up online stores to increase consumer interest towards digital payments. GetMeAShop has seen a 100% increase in the number of merchant queries every day, and all of them want to setup an online store and receive digital payments.

GetMeAShop will not only help its merchants accept domestic payments but also international payments with the assistance of PayPal. Presently, they are also working on developing some cutting edge sales solutions for the online retail industry. Logistics is an important component of the eCommerce ecosystem thus to enable logistics GetMeAShop have integrated one-click technology integration to schedule shipments and pickups.

Image Source: ShutterStock

PayPal Partners With OYO Rooms To Enable Global Transactions

PayPal,Online payment solutions giant has tied up with  India’s branded  hotel room aggregator   OYO Rooms.

Under the tie-up, PayPal will help OYO Rooms source payments from global consumers and allow Indian users to make international bookings.

The companies, however, did not provide any financial details.

"Growth of new age businesses like OYO Rooms can be further accelerated if they are protected against online payment risks and frauds," PayPal APAC Regional Merchant Services VP Hamish Moline said.

PayPal's technology protects merchants such as OYO Rooms against unauthorised transactions and mitigates associated risks, he added.

OYO Rooms recently forayed into international market by launching their operations in Malaysia.

The partnership with PayPal will enable Oyo Rooms’ customers across the globe to pay for their bookings in Malaysia and other South East Asian countries via PayPal.

"This tie-up with PayPal will assist us in delivering a seamless payment experience through reduced friction during payment process. PayPal is a global leader in payments and we look forward to their network supporting our growth," said OYO Rooms COO, Abhinav Sinha.

 

Paypal To Open Its Incubation Centre 'Start Tank' In Bangalore Next Year

Paypal is all set to open its incubation centre 'Start Tank' in Bengaluru next year. PayPal India, in partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai Chapter, already have Start Tank, the startup incubator, in Chennai at PayPal's Chennai development center.

Start Tank, which is a part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program of PayPal, provides a cost and obligation-free environment for the selected startups to evolve. Start Tank incubates earlystage tech-centric start-ups for an average 12 months. It provides them with access to mentors, investors and venture capitalists.

"Our future destination for Start Tank is Bengaluru as we have a development centre there," said Anupam Pahuja, general manager at PayPal Development Centres India. "We also plan to help the startup ecosystem in Shanghai and Singapore."

The upcoming Start Tank inucbation center in Bangalore will incubate various startups from Karnataka and host them at its development centre, although the number of startups to be incubated has not been announced yet. The incubation centre will incubate early-stage startups for an average of 12 months, and provide them with access to investors, mentors and venture capitalists.

Start Tank was launched in Chennai in October last year under a partnership with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). It currently houses six technology start-ups. Apart from Chennai (India), Start Tank have its presence in Boston and London as well. PayPal said it would eventually expand the centre to cover Shanghai and Singapore as well.

Paypal to start Startup Incubation centre in Chennai, India

PayPal is all set to set up Incubation centre in Chennai, India for tech-startups in India, as per reports by The Hindu, the incubation centre once set up in place it will promote a culture of entrepreneurship and help boost the growing technology startup ecosystem in the country.

PayPal has partnered with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Chennai to provide office space, mentoring, technical training, and networking opportunities to tech start-ups in India.

The first batch of start-ups will consist of 8-10 companies, with a couple of companies already settling into the incubation centre, while the average incubation period will be 12 months.

Although the PayPal has incubators in its Boston and New York offices as well however this is the first time that the company has tied up with an external agency to set up the same in India.

Apart from startup incubation PayPal also wants to make India an incubation center for the company's employee engagement policies. In 2012, PayPal hired 120 people for its offices in Chennai and Bangalore. PayPal plans to recruit 1000 candidates for its Bangalore Development center.

India is fast picking up in terms of startup incubation centres in India and especially in southern part of India like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi and now Chennai is also coming up as hub of startup incubation.

 

PayPal Restarts Electronic Withdrawal Services in India

Just few days back PayPal sent a notice to all their users stating that Electronic withdrawals from your PayPal account or direct deposits to banks in India will no longer be available after July 29, 2010 for an unspecified period. This may be because of some unstated problems with Reserve Bank of India.

The Official message from PayPal to all its users said this:

“In accordance with regulatory instructions, we would like to notify you about a change in our withdrawal functionality in India starting on August 1, 2010. At present you can request for either an electronic or cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account if you are an India user.

From July 29, 2010 onwards, you will only be able to request for a cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account.

While we are working hard to restore the electronic withdrawal service, in the meantime, we are bringing this matter to your attention so that you can plan your future withdrawal activities accordingly.”

But, good news is that something has been resolved, and PayPal has restarted the essential electronic withdrawal services. The PayPal Official announcement has little or no justification for the aforementioned moves. It simple apologizes for the inconvenience.

Dickson Seow from the PayPal’s Corporate Communications team wrote:

“We’ve received good news – India users can perform electronic withdrawals right now as you did before.

We want you to know that our customers are our #1 priority and we are working non-stop to improve our service to you.”

However, the earlier announced $5 refund involved in cheque withdrawals will be continued for Indian users.

I wonder what has forced PayPal to bring these latest changes. The exact reason for these latest switching is still unknown. It may be that due to some objections from Indian regulators which have forced PayPal to stop electronic withdrawals in India.