Paypal, world's largest online payments company, which is yet to take off in India, will introduce new services here hoping to spark interest among the burgeoning Indian internet users who shop on the internet.
"We are excited about India. We have got the regulators on our side. Now we need to get our act together and develop products that will fit this market," said Dhruv Sawhney, director enterprise product and global operational excellence, Paypal.
Paypal plans to a launch point-of-sale application in India, which will allow online shoppers use their debit and credit cards to make transactions with the help of mobile phones. Paypal, a subsidiary of online market place eBay Inc, had suspended its India operations two years ago due to enquiries from local regulators.
Unlike in the developed markets, online shoppers in India prefer to pay cash on delivery, rather than pay online using a credit or debit card at the time of purchase.
Paypal also plans to launch a money transfer application, which will let users send and receive money within the country.
Last year, the company had made changes in its user agreements after the Reserve Bank of India announced regulations on online money transfers. As a result, the online payment firm had to restrict its India users from withdrawing PayPal funds through a bank and transferring funds directly between two personal accounts.
Sawhney said Paypal has been working with the Indian regulators and is now ready to build its base in the country, where it has two development centers.
Although Paypal does not break out user numbers or payments by country, the payments platform company is expected to have about 300,000 users in India.
India is not a large part of Paypal's business but close to 50% of all the technology and R&D work for Paypal happens from Bangalore and Chennai.
Paypal, which has about $3.5 billion in sales as of now, expects to double its revenue to $7 billion by 2013. Last month, its parent firm eBay's third quarter revenues had increased 32% to $3 billion, primarily driven by Paypal's growth. Globally, Paypal has 103 million active registered accounts, a 14% increase from the same period last year.
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