Luxembourg and London — May 27, 2005 — PayPal, a leading online payment service, has been added as a payment option for customers of Skype, the Global Internet Telephony Company™.
PayPal offers a secure online payments environment for users purchasing subscriptions to Skype’s pre-paid premium services at the Skype Store at www.skype.com. PayPal acts as an online wallet giving buyers the flexibility to select how they want to pay for their purchase – via credit cards, banking accounts or stored balance. Skype has added PayPal as an additional payment mechanism following an extensive review of the market and a beta trial of PayPal amongst Skype customers.
“Skype is committed to expanding payment methods to ensure smooth and consumer-friendly transactions, and we are pleased to offer our customers PayPal as an additional secure payment option,” said Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO and co-founder. “Skype provides reliable, easy-to-use services and during beta testing PayPal proved itself as an effective and popular means of payment; we expect offering a PayPal option will help drive Skype Store transactions.”
PayPal enables customers to make payments directly from a bank account, with no credit card transaction required. PayPal also provides enhanced customer protection and fraud prevention systems for Skype customers making payments on the Internet.
“With nearly 72 million accounts worldwide, PayPal is a proven online payment method for online shoppers,” commented Geoff Iddison, chief executive of PayPal Europe. “The partnership with Skype brings PayPal a global opportunity to expand our user base. PayPal enables Skype users to pay for the Skype services in a seamless and secure way. We look forward to sharing the convenience and security of the PayPal system with Skype users.”
Skype is the leading VOIP-category product worldwide, with more than 40 million registered users. Skype’s pre-paid premium services provide an inexpensive way to maintain easy connectivity with ordinary fixed and mobile phones worldwide.
