PayPal Scores Another Hit With Updated App

Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - 10:59 by Simon Crisp

Almost every day it seems that PayPal, an organisation that has significantly contributed in enabling safe shopping online, is expanding its business and becoming involved in new sectors of the e-commerce world. PayPal has over 80 million active accounts in 24 currencies worldwide, used by businesses as well as by consumers buying and selling on auction giant eBay and via other PayPal services.

Continuing the trend, PayPal's upgraded iPhone app, which launched only a few weeks ago in March, is already proving a big hit with e-commerce fans.

The app, which has been designed to allow users of the iPhone to undertake tasks such as donating to charities and organising notifications to remind them of recurring payments, all whilst on the move, has already been downloaded over a million times. Consumers downloading the app are doubtless existing PayPal users looking to do some safe shopping online using their smartphones.

Acknowledging the explosive growth of the smartphone market, PayPal has also released Android and BlackBerry versions of the app, thus covering the major smartphone operating systems with the exception of Nokia's Maemo.

Consumers can also use the app to manage their PayPal accounts, letting them withdraw money to bank accounts whilst on the move, or collect money from others. The app also features a calculator for working out global currency comparisons and is available in fifteen different languages.

Initially launched in the middle of 2008, the PayPal Mobile app is available through the various app stores and remains free of charge. The recent upgraded version of the app also features 'bumping', as a result of a PayPal collaboration with Bump Technologies, which allows users to 'bump' their phones together with other smartphones using the app to allow for instant interaction and the fast completion of transactions.