PayPal's Plastic In the off-eBay world, most purchases are still made with credit and debit cards, so PayPal's main rivals for online dollars are Visa, MasterCard (MA), American Express (AXP), and the banks that issue their cards. Though PayPal has a lofty 143 million accounts, Visa has more than a billion. To compete with banks, PayPal is becoming more like a bank itself. For the past year, PayPal has tested a virtual debit card enabling users to make purchases with PayPal on Web sites that do not offer it as a payment option. The service, which PayPal plans to launch broadly before the holiday shopping season, provides a one-time MasterCard number for a given purchase. The money is then debited from the user's PayPal account. Also like a bank, PayPal has long doled out interest on balances left in PayPal accounts. The rate, often more than 4%, is typically higher than that offered by brick-and-mortar banks. It also offers actual plastic credit cards, through a partnership with GE Consumer Finance (GE), for which it gives buyers 1% back on transactions. In addition, PayPal allows users to wire money through eBay's Skype online phone service. There also are plans to give users the ability to view receipts for past transactions online, says Thompson. Source: http://www.businessweek.com/technol...=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
i wouldn't be surprised if they started requiring social securities to signup for paypal, and start offering FDIC insurance. who knows. paypal might be the first e-bank. (after ingdirect, and emigrantdirect)
PayPal is one of the major payment processors in the worl. Is given Banking License in Luxembourg, thus I dont think it'll be e-service anymore. Infact, It has started establishing itself as bank.