PayPal Plans to Double Asia Presence

Over 1,000 New Jobs to Be Created

March 17, 2010 -- SINGAPORE -- PayPal today announced that it plans to double the number of employees in Asia Pacific from 1,000 currently to more than 2,000 by the end of the year. The company plans to add more than 100 new jobs at its international headquarters in Singapore.

“PayPal and China UnionPay Open the Global Marketplace to Chinese Consumers.”

New jobs will be located at all seven offices in the region including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. For its Singapore business headquarters and development center, PayPal will be recruiting Singapore-based professionals with expertise in technology, product development, infrastructure design, risk and engineering.

PayPal processed more than $6 billion of total payment volume* in Asia Pacific in 2009, an increase of 38 percent from 2008. Since its establishment in the region in 2006, the company has struck dozens of strategic partnerships with Asian companies including announcements today with DBS, Singapore’s largest bank, and China UnionPay, China’s bankcard association.

“While PayPal’s growth in Asia Pacific to date has largely been driven by our cross border business, we fully expect the domestic business in many of our Asian markets to explode in the coming years,” said Farhad Irani, vice president of PayPal Asia Pacific. “Our success in the region will continue to rely on partnering with merchants, financial services companies and local governments to deliver the right services for our customers.”

Today’s announcement was made at PayPal’s new international headquarters in Suntec City, Singapore’s technology hub in the middle of the nation’s central business district. PayPal’s international headquarters (PPPL) represent all of PayPal’s business outside of the USA. Singapore serves as an excellent operational hub for PayPal’s international operations due to its economically strategic location, its friendly business environment, political stability and world-class infrastructure.

Mr. Leo Yip, chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), said, “We are excited that PayPal has chosen Singapore as the center from which to double its business in Asia. This is another example of how Singapore plans to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation.”

Opportunity for Developers in APAC

As part of PayPal’s plans to help grow the e-commerce ecosystem across Asia Pacific, the company also announced that the PayPal mobile payment software development kit (SDK) will be made available to developers in the region.

With just a few lines of code, developers can add a checkout button to accept mobile payments without the need to collect financial information from customers. The mobile SDK, which will initially support iPhone app development, will be available in the second quarter of 2010 to developers in the region.

As part of the launch of the SDK, PayPal president Scott Thompson will be meeting several of Singapore’s top Web developers at a roundtable tomorrow at PayPal’s offices.

* Total Payment Volume numbers at spot rate

Source: PayPal