what is paypal?

PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders.

PayPal is a secure online payment method, which allows you to pay or get paid quickly and easily without sharing any of your financial information. PayPal remember and safeguard your bank, credit or debit card details, so you don’t have to. You can use PayPal to pay for items on eBay or any of the thousands of online retailers that accept PayPal. You can also get cashback and exclusive discounts from selected retailers via the PayPal Offer site.

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 is an example of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce.

PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It sometimes also charges a transaction fee for receiving money (a percentage of the amount sent plus an additional fixed amount). The fees charged 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. In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur a "foreign transaction fee" if the seller is located in another country, as credit card issuers are automatically informed of the seller's country of origin.

On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. 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, Berlin and Tel-Aviv. As of July 2007, across Europe, PayPal also operates as a Luxembourg-based bank.

Creating your PayPal account is easy. Once it’s set up, you just need to attach your bank account, credit or debit card to pay with PayPal. You can then pay on thousands of websites in just a few clicks. When you’re paid with PayPal, the funds go instantly into your PayPal account. You can transfer them to your bank account, or pay for other items directly from your PayPal balance.

Why use it?
There are many reasons why people prefer using PayPal, but here are the top ones:
it is safer : When you pay with PayPal your financial details are never shared with sellers or retailers, so you’re more protected against fraud.
It is faster : Because you don’t have to type in your card details each time you pay, you can check out faster online. You can also get eBay items delivered more quickly, as you can pay the seller instantly.
It is easier : PayPal is the preferred web payment method in the the world because it’s simply a smarter, savier way to pay online. All you need is your email address and a password to pay in just a few clicks.

How does it work?
Creating your PayPal account is easy. All you need is your email address and a password. Once your account is set up, you just need to attach your bank account, credit or debit card to make online payments in a few easy clicks. Simply select the PayPal option in checkout.As a broker in the transaction online, PayPal makes person sending the money to do only with "mail recipient". The other side can not see the credit card information or bank account. This is a PayPal advantages in maintaining security of personal data users.

what is e-currency?

The " E" of e-currency stands for "electronic";in which means the currency used on the internet related field just like email.There are several benefits of using e-currency service on the internet like e-gold and paypal.
1. The e-currency can be used on the internet related commercial applications such as shopping on the internet and doing personal investment via internet.
2. The using of the ecurrency services for example e-gold and paypal brings people a new way not to use their credit card as the only payment method on the internet since sometime there exists a big risk to provide your credit card information to the merchant you do not know them very well and most of them are far far away in the other side of the earth .
3. The ecurrency service companies such as e-gold ,paypal and EMO can provide both the buyers and merchant the convenient way to send and receive the payment just by clicking the confirm button and the deal is done.None of the payment methods in the world right now can provide this kind of efficiency capability

Type of e-currency

There are two major types of ecurrency in the world.The major different is their backed base .One is backed by precious metal such as e-gold is backed by gold .Another type of ecurrency is backed by hard currency like Paypal.Boht of them are all called ecurrency.
Digital Gold Currencies(DGCs) are a form of Internet money denominated in gold weight.The typical unit of account for such currencies is the gold gram or the troy ounce,although other units such as the gold dinar are sometimes used.Due to its rarity and durability, gold has long been used as a means of payment.The exact nature of the evolution of money varies significantly across time and place,though it is believed by historians that gold's high value for its utility,density,resistance to corrosion,uniformity,and easy divisibility made it useful both as a store of value and as a unit of account for stored value of other kinds.In Babylon,a bushel of wheat was the unit of account,with a weight in gold used as the token to transport value.
Just like the Gold backed Digital Gold Currencies (DGCs) .Currency backed Digital Currency is another type of ecurrency but been backed by the hard currencies .Most of those currency backed digital money are backed in USD and EURO for example Paypal,NetPay,EMO,and Stormpay.Just like the DGCs the DC has the same key function for using in the internet related commercial applications.

Pro and Con about different types of ecurrency

DC (here we mean ecurrency backed by hard currency ) is widely used in the internet as as the medium of internet related commercial actions.This provides those users a quick,simple and safe way for shopping instead of showing their credit card information to merchant who they do not know .But however DC is some how been restricted in some regional area which is defined by the currency they choose to be backed .The major reason is the floating character of exchange rate between the hard currency and the local currency often used by the internet users.For example, an internet user who lives in Japan may lose money when processing the currency exchange from USD to JPY if he does not watch out the international economics careful enough.
So most of the ecurrency companies backed by hard currencies become big giant that is just because the number of this kind of currency user is big enough .For example PayPal .But no one will guarantee if Paypal can do the same good job in the future hard currency such as RMB in China if Paypal does not provide RMB base payment service.

Summary

As the allegro expandsion of internet economical applications ,the using of ecurrency will be the trend in the coming future just like credit card application before . But however there is no unified defination to the ecurrency service industries .For exalpme ,Will we define a ecurrency company as the bank service or just a finacial service firm ?This question remains gray area. giexcdotkom