eBay's online payment service PayPal now supports payments in 10 new currencies, allowing customers to send, receive and hold funds in a total of 17 currencies worldwide. In addition, residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan (https://www.paypal.com/worldwide).

Sellers in the Philippines have been lobbying PayPal to extend its service there for some time. A blogger who started a "PayPal for the Philippines Initiative" pointed out that the new functionality is very limited since users in the Philippines can not receive funds, and can only use PayPal to pay for transactions online. His comment, "It's not perfect, but it's a good start," was echoed by users leaving comments on the blog post (http://www.paypalnow.com.ph/blog/archives/paypal-now-available-in-the-philippines).

PayPal Senior Vice President Dana Stalder stated in a press release, "International expansion is a key part of PayPal's growth strategy, and we are thrilled to expand our services to 103 markets and support 17 currencies worldwide. With these new offerings, PayPal continues to make domestic and cross-border trading easier and more convenient for its millions of customers around the globe."

The new currencies supported by PayPal include the Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Hong Kong Dollar, Hungarian Forint, New Zealand Dollar, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Singapore Dollar, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Franc. These new currencies add to those already available to PayPal customers, including US Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling, Canadian Dollars, Japanese Yen and Chinese RMB.

PayPal currently has 114 million accounts globally. In the second quarter of 2006, PayPal's total payment volume - or the total value of transactions - was $8.9 billion.