I've done a quick search and don't seem to be able to find a post about this. Has anyone else noticed that Paypal have activated the accounts optional option on UK accounts at long last? So I can now take payments from non-account holders. Woohoo
But not from all non-account holders it seems. We are in EU already, yet I still cannot have a Paypal account nor pay to any Paypal user with my card, because our market is too small for Paypal. Just yesterday, I didn't make a webhosting purchase with 3 different webhosters, one of them that I really regret, because all they could take was Paypal (for an instantly opened account, I have no time to wait until a check or MO clears).
My understanding is that this is being rolled out to all business and premier accounts (https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/mer/WAX_landing). It doesn't appear to have gone live on all accounts simultaneously (I only noticed mine yesterday, several days after I heard of someone elses going live and then disappearing then going live again).
It isn't available to the whole EU, just the UK so far it seems. I haven't seen that ability here in Ireland either. My paypal payments are up this month though although still account for about 3% versus regular credit card. We had a short period where we had a problem with our old credit card processor some time ago and had to switch to Paypal/Cheques/Cash only and we saw our sales drop to near nothing. Paypal not requiring a signup will be a help here but it will be a long time before you can offer Paypal as the primary way for your customers to pay via Credit Card