PayPal

 PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as 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,^[4] PayPal went public through an IPO in 2002. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay later that year, valued at $1.5 billion.^[5] In 2015 eBay spun off PayPal to its shareholders, and PayPal became an independent company again.^[2][6] The company was ranked 143rd on the 202On September 1, 2015, PayPal launched its peer-to-peer payment platform "PayPal.Me", a service that allows users to send a custom link to request funds via text, email, or other messaging platforms.^[48] Custom links are set to be structured as PayPal.me/username/amount requested.^[48] PayPal.Me was launched in 18 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Canada, Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.^[49] PayPal had 170 million users, as of September 2015, and the focus of PayPal.Me was to create a mobile-first user experience that enables faster payment sharing than PayPal's traditional tools.^[48]

On May 17, 2018, PayPal agreed to purchase Swedish payment processor iZettle for $2.2 billion. This was PayPal's largest acquisition until late November 2019 and the company claims that it is the in-store expertise and digital marketing strength that will complement its own online and mobile payment services.^[50]

On March 19, 2019, PayPal announced its partnership with Instagram as part of the company's new checkout feature, "Checkout on Instagram".^[51][52]

In June 2019, PayPal reported that Chief Operating Officer Bill Ready would be leaving the company at the end of the year, transitioning into the role of commerce chief for Google.^[53]

In October 2019, PayPal reported a loss of $228 million on investments, largely due to a failed return from a $500 million investment in Uber.^[54][55]

On January 6, 2020, PayPal 2 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.^[7]