PayPal aims for $3bn in transactions and offline expansion

PayPal, the American online payment giant, expects to process more than 3 billion dollar (2 billion euro) in 2011. In two years time, that figure should rise to 7.5 billion dollar (5 billion euro) – an expansion that should also come from offline stores.

Four times bigger in one year, ten times bigger in three

Last year, PayPal “only” processed transactions with a total worth of almost half a billion euro, but that figure is expected to quadruple because of the booming sales via smartphone. Nowadays, 90% of PayPal’s transactions are still performed through “normal” webshops, but the predicted evolution is that m-commerce will grow ever more important.

New markets: gaming and offline

PayPal continues to look for other markets too though, like Xbox Live members: users of Microsoft’s gaming console and network have been able to pay online using PayPal since three months.

A more spectacular step for the leader in online payments is the one towards offline transactions: Ebay’s daughter plans to offer several American stores the possibility to process offline payments as well via PayPal. “We aim to expand this service aggressively through our retail partners”, says Sam Shrauger, vice-president of PayPal, who hopes to be present in 20 major American retail chains by the end of 2012. In Europe, the group only plans a test project for now, at British pizza chain Pizza Express.

Fighting Google Wallet

PayPal says not to be worried about the new Google Wallet, the search engine giant’s latest invention. “They might have a lot of users, we have twelve years experience in developing a worldwide network of secure and reliable online payment services.” Shrauger refused to comment on the legal battle between PayPal and Google about two former employees leaking company secrets.