PayPal announced Monday it has surpassed 100 million accounts across 55 markets worldwide. eBay acquired PayPal in 2002 after its own BillPoint service failed to gain traction with users.

According to the press statement, PayPal began offering its service in 1999, ending that year with 12,000 accounts and $235,000 in total payment volume. In 2005, PayPal processed more than $27 billion in total payment volume and exceeded $1 billion in revenue. The company has localized services in 14 countries and supports payments in seven currencies - U.S. Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan.

Perhaps helping PayPal's numbers is eBay's new "Safe Payments Policy," which limits the forms of payment sellers may accept for eBay transactions. An article in Tuesday's Australia IT (http://digbig.com/4ggpa) reveals that all are not happy with the move by eBay to promote PayPal and limit other methods of payment through its new policy, which has been rolled out across eBay's international sites.

Competitors have had a difficult time competing against PayPal and most have dropped their eBay offerings. Many eBay sellers say they are concerned over the lack of competition, and applaud Google for testing a payment service of its own, which the Wall Street Journal recently called "GBuy." The Journal article also profiled PayPal President Jeff Jordan, who is expanding PayPal beyond eBay to merchants with their own ecommerce sites.

https://www.paypal.com