PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American company operating a worldwide
online payments system. Online money transfers [en.wikipedia.org] serve as electronic
alternatives to traditional paper methods like checks [en.wikipedia.org] and money orders [en.wikipedia.org].
PayPal is one of the world's largest internet payment companies.
The company operates as an acquirer [en.wikipedia.org], performing payment processing for online
vendors, auction [en.wikipedia.org] sites and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.

Established in 1998, PayPal had its IPO [en.wikipedia.org] in 2002, and became a wholly owned
subsidiary of eBay [en.wikipedia.org] later that year. In 2014, PayPal moved $228 billion in 26
currencies across more than 190 nations, generating a total revenue of $7.9
billion (44% of eBay’s total profits). The same year, eBay announced plans
to spin-off PayPal into an independent company by mid-2015 and was complete
on July 18, 2015.