Two months after eBay set up a new entity in Luxembourg, its PayPal subsidiary was granted a banking license for the European Union by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg, effective July 2, 2007. PayPal said on Tuesday that the new banking license would allow it to continue its European expansion by offering its services to more online merchants across Europe. In addition, PayPal will be moving its European headquarters to Luxembourg.
eBay recently created eBay Europe, S.à r.l, a new entity that became the new contractual partner for all of its EU-based members on March 1, 2007. The creation of the new entity means all EU-based eBay sellers are now treated equally and are subject to the same rate of tax on their eBay selling fees - the Luxembourg VAT rate of 15 percent.
"Our goal is to give European consumers more places to shop securely and conveniently across the web by making PayPal available on virtually every retail website in Europe," said Brent Bellm, vice president of PayPal Europe. "Establishing a new European headquarters in Luxembourg, and receiving this bank license, is a significant step in the next phase of PayPal's European growth."
PayPal has more than 35 million accounts, and is offered on more than 100,000 websites in Europe. In 2006, PayPal processed $8.4 billion of total payment volume in Europe.
PayPal has local language websites in 15 countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. To encourage local and cross border ecommerce, PayPal also supports payments from 190 markets in 17 currencies including Euros, Pounds Sterling, Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Hungarian Forint, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Francs.
Two months after eBay set up a new entity in Luxembourg, its PayPal subsidiary was granted a banking license for the European Union by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg, effective July 2, 2007. PayPal said on Tuesday that the new banking license would allow it to continue its European expansion by offering its services to more online merchants across Europe. In addition, PayPal will be moving its European headquarters to Luxembourg. 
