PAYPAL

What is PayPal ?
 
PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders.
A PayPal account can be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card. The recipient of a PayPal transfer can either request a check from PayPal, establish their own PayPal deposit account or request a transfer to their bank account.
PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type.^[2] In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.
On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay.^[3] Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Austin, Texas in the U.S., Chennai, Dublin, Kleinmachnow (near Berlin) and Tel-Aviv. As of July 2007, across Europe, PayPal also operates as a Luxembourg-based bank.
On March 17, 2010, PayPal entered into an agreement with China UnionPay (CUP), China's bankcard association, to allow Chinese consumers to use PayPal to shop online.^{[citation needed]} PayPal is planning to expand its workforce in Asia to 2,000 by the end of the year 2010.^{[4][5][dated info]}
Between December 4–9, 2010, PayPal services were disrupted due to denial-of-service attacks organized by Anonymous in retaliation for PayPal's decision to freeze the account of WikiLeaks citing terms of use violations over the publication of leaked US diplomatic cables.

Local restrictions

 China

In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:

• PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
• PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.

It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.

Japan

In late March 2010, new Japanese banking regulations forced PayPal Japan to suspend the ability of personal account holders registered in Japan from sending or receiving money between individuals and as a result are now subject to PayPal's business fees on all transactions.

Taiwan

As of mid July 2010, users in Taiwan have noticed that the "Personal" tab for sending money has been omitted without notice. There is no longer an option to send personal payments, thus forcing all recipients to pay a fee.^{[citation needed]}

Brazil

As of mid-November 2010, users in Brazil also have noticed that the "Personal" tab for sending money has been omitted without notice. There is no longer an option to send personal payments, thus forcing all recipients to pay a fee. Balance transfers between PayPal accounts of the same account holder incur an additional 6.4% fee.

As of beginning January 2011, Brazilian users are no longer allowed to withdraw money using credit/debit cards.

India

As of March 2011, PayPal made changes to the User Agreement for Indian users to comply with Reserve Bank of India regulations . Notable changes to the agreement were:

• Export related payments for goods and services may not exceed $500.
• Any balance or future payments must not be used to buy goods or services but transferred to a bank account within 7 days from the receipt of payment.

Security

A credit-card sized alternative to the keychain security token, the PayPal Keycard generates a temporary login code to authenticate the user.

Security key

In early 2006, PayPal introduced an optional security key as an additional precaution against fraud. A user account tied to a security key has a modified login process: the account holder enters their login ID and password, as normal, but is then prompted to press the button on the security key and enter the six-digit number generated by it. For convenience, the user may append the six-digit to their password in the login screen. This way they are not prompted for it on another page. Using this method is required for some services, such as when using PayPal through the eBay application on iPhone.
This two-factor authentication is intended to make account compromise by a malicious third party without access to the physical security key difficult, although it does not prevent so-called Man in the Browser (MITB) attacks. However, the user (or malicious third party) can alternatively authenticate by providing the credit card or bank account number listed on their account. Thus, the PayPal's implementation does not offer the security of true two-factor authentication.
The key currently costs US$5.00 for all users with no ongoing fees. The option of using a security key with one's account is currently available only to users registered in Australia, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.