KUALA LUMPUR, 10 December, 2009: Following its mobile payments application on Apple iPhones, PayPal just launched applications for BlackBerry and Android phones and is currently developing an application for Symbian phones.

The iPhone app which can be download for free from the Apple App Store lets users make payments, check their account balance and review past transactions on the iPhone. The Android and BlackBerry applications can be downloaded from their respective app stores, Mario Shiliashki, PayPal managing director and general manager for Southeast Asia & India told reporters at the Dubrovnik Croatian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur today.

At the same time, PayPal, the San Jose, California-based provider of Internet payment services launched two new services for Malaysia – namely, support for payments in Malaysian Ringgit and a new feature for merchants to withdraw money from their PayPal accounts and deposit it in local banks. As PayPal is connected to Malaysia's Central Clearance System, it is accessible my most banks also connected to the system.

“Our purpose is to enable small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) to easily conduct electronic-commerce transactions worldwide and the key significance of these new services is that it enables business to be conducted within Malaysia using PayPal, whereas previously buyers in Malaysia could buy from merchants overseas and buyers overseas could buy from merchants in Malaysia, and it also gives Malaysian merchants access to our 80 million active accounts worldwide,” said Shiiliashki.

Local PayPal merchants include MOL Access Portal which lets buyers of its online games worldwide pay for them via PayPal. However, most of PayPal's merchants sell non-digital goods, such as WJR Enterprise, a home-based business in Klang which sells Tupperware plastic storage containers online with payments via PayPal. Another is Promethius Audio which sells top range audio equipment worldwide with payments via PayPal.

Whilst the number of PayPal merchants in Malaysia is still relatively small, Shiliashki expects that once the local PayPal ecosystem grows big enough, merchants will be able to pay their suppliers via PayPal as well with funds received from their customers, which would help solve challenging cash-flow issues facing SMBs, start-ups and one-man-shows.

Its local partners include MOL Access Portal, iPay88, NetBuilder, hosted online store applications provider Neowave and Seat Advisor. PayPal also partnered with the Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) to encourage local businesses to trade worldwide.

An eBay company, PayPal has over 78 million active account holders in 190 countries, with payments available in 24 currencies and its accepted in over 100,000 websites across the United States, Europe and Asia.

PayPal facilitated US$60 billion worth of payments in 2008, up 27% on the previous year, and it aims to facilitate between US$100 billion to US$120 billion transaction volume in 2010. Transaction volume with Malaysia was worth between US$2 billion to US$3 billion in 2008.

The beauty of PayPal is that merchants can sign up online without having to pay any joining or annual fees. PayPal charges them from 2.5% to 3.5% commission on payments received. 

In some countries, buyers can top up their PayPal credit by visiting their bank or automatically by direct debit from their account but for now, Malaysian buyers will still have to top up their PayPal accounts online with their credit or debit cards but plans to enable top-up from bank accounts in Malaysia are in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, its PayPal X initiative opens up the PayPal platform to the community of applications developers to create a host of innovative applications making use of PayPal, hence enhancing its ecosystem.