PayPal announced it has nearly 35 million accounts in Europe, with a local presence in 15 countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and the UK. PayPal said it has high penetration rates among online shoppers in the major European markets including the UK, Germany, France and Italy.

To support local and cross border ecommerce, PayPal supports payments from 103 markets in 17 global currencies including Euros, Pounds Sterling, Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Hungarian Forint, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Francs.

"PayPal has worked hard to build a safe and convenient payment service specifically tailored to European ecommerce," said Brent Bellm, vice president of PayPal Europe. "PayPal lets consumers pay using the card or bank of their choice, without ever having to retype their financial information or share it with the merchant."

In 2006, PayPal processed $8.4 billion of total payment volume in Europe. Thousands of European merchants accept PayPal from their websites, including leading ecommerce sites such as Boots, DHL, Harrods, Meetic, Pixmania and eBay.