Online payments platform PayPal has announced that its services can now be accessed in nearly every nation in the world after it expanded its presence into a further ten markets.
203 areas across the world are now able to use PayPal following the company’s expansion into Belarus, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Nigeria, Paraguay, and Zimbabwe.
The expansion, which will roll out over the next few days, means that people in these countries will now be able to register for a PayPal account and start making payments to the millions of websites across the world which use the service to process transactions.
"While technology is breaking down barriers to global commerce, many people are wary of entering their credit or debit card details on the website of an unknown seller, operating in a distant country," said Rupert Keeley, senior vice president of PayPal Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The news comes as a rival to PayPal’s services, Klarna, announced it will invest £100m in the UK as it looks to expand its presence across Europe.
The Swedish company, which handles 200,000 transactions per day, will establish a new base in London as part of its plans for a roll out across the UK and take on PayPal.
Klarna said that the UK market presented an attractive opportunity because it lags behind other European markets in terms of the number of users finalising purchases on mobile, despite being the region’s largest e-commerce market.
The company, which includes Asos, Spotify and M&M Direct amongst its 45,000 merchants and partners, already has an established presence in Northern Europe (where it has a 10% share of the e-commerce market) currently reaches 25m customers and reported revenues of €200m (£160m) during 2013.
