14 DAY TRIAL // PayPal has consistently been a bright spot for eBay and is seeing strong growth in revenue as well as volume transaction. But it looks like it's hardly close to what the company envisions its payment system will become. One great step in taking it to the next level is opening up the platform to allow developers to integrate payment options in their apps or sites in ways that haven't been possible until now. The PayPal API has been announced for quite a while but is now very close to launch with PayPal president Scott Thompson claiming the API will become live and opened to all developers.
"In just two weeks, PayPal will be the first global online payment service to open its platform to everyone," Thompson told the audience at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. "We hope and expect to unleash the power of digital money regardless of the currency and regardless of the platform in any country in the world."
PayPal revealed the API platform, dubbed PayPal X, in June but it is now ready for a broad release. Thompson didn't go into too much detail about the platform but it will be officially launched on November 3 at the PayPal X Innovate 09, the first PayPal developer conference. Several companies have been testing the API in a limited trial period with Research in Motion using it in the Blackberry app marketplace to provide users with a customized payment option.
eBay is facing increased competition in the payment front from the likes of Amazon and Google but so far has managed to enjoy a comfortable lead. Still, competitors have begun offering options that PayPal currently lacks, most notably microtransaction support, with Amazon's Flexible Payments System, but the new API should bring PayPal up to date in several fronts. The API is also important as PayPal is facing a new threat in the growing virtual currency market. With more and more sites opting for this type of systems to handle microtransactions, like Facebook and many other social networks, PayPal needs to address this as well.