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PayPal Goes Public

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hip-hip-hurrah dept.

fluffhead234 writes: "Looks like IPO's for internet companies can still bring in something. PayPal, the online payment people, raised just over 70 million in their IPO: PPay Pal IPO"

6 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. internet revenue revival by xtstrike · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe this is the start of another internet boom, it seems after the marketing lows of the internet where companies were failing constantly after 6 months in action the tides are turning. The companies that have entered into business on the internet, such as paypal with a sound business idea are now starting to get the rewards they deserve.

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  2. Remarkably Ironic... by mikeage · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think it's interersting that paypal both created (and jumped on) a new marketplace: easy, convenient, secure online funds transfers _for_the_little_guy_. Thanks to Paypal, instead of paying 2-3% to Visa/MC (Amex is the worst: it used to be 7% surcharge) and getting a credit card scanner, anyone could accept credit cards. But then they blew it. Poor security, aweful customer service... I was an early adopter, and really liked the service when it came out. They saw a market, assessed the needs, and then... ignored them. Oh Paypal, what happened? You could have been so great... but now they're just one of a thousand.

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  3. The Interesting Results of a Quick Dig by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nokia Ventures is in on paypal, as the article states. Nokia Ventures focuses portfolio priority on mobility and IP related businesses. BMC Software is a partner, along with Nokia and others, in Nokia Ventures. BMC deals with business solutions, that wonderful catch-all, but a look on their site will tell you these people are very supply-chain oriented.

    This is of course jumping to many conclusions reeking more of wishful thinking than any sense of reality, but the potential for synergy here just tickles me silly...

    I'm picturing an entire order-shipping-billing cycle, along with the obligatory online supply chain management system, all operated from PDA's and/or cell phones...

    Any suit with a geek-streak such as me is no doubt drooling by now.

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  4. I can only use paypal for $940 more by Sabalon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    After I spend $940 more on paypal (even though it's coming of a credit-card) I will no longer be able to use paypal, according to them, until I provide them a bank routing number.

    So, I buy something on Ebay, wanna pay with my CC, why the hell does this company need access to my bank account?

    Things like that, even though I've never had any trouble with paypal, set off all sorts of little red flags in my head!

    1. Re:I can only use paypal for $940 more by radish · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's most likely to comply with anti money laundering regulations. Institutions are required to have evidence of their clients identity before performing any substantial transactions on their behalf. This is particularly true where cash/cash equivs are involved. Now you can argue whether PayPal are an "institution", but if I were them I wouldn't want to have attention drawn to myself by being labelled a supporter of drug dealers etc.

      So they don't need access to your bank account, but they know your bank have validated your identity, so it's like a web of trust thing.

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  5. Re:Pay Pal and Ebay & Citibank and and and by RGRistroph · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What is "peer to peer" about c2it ? As far as I can tell, it is a system where a transaction moves money in accounts on a central computer. Isn't that what paypal is ?

    Also, VISA, MasterCard, American Exprese, and the other associations you so breathlessly refer to aren't peer to peer either.

    I think you are confusing the term "peer to peer" with the idea of allowing account holders who normally only deposit paychecks and then buy things to also receive other payments into the account. But letting each account be a "merchant account" is not peer to peer, it's just a shift in the way people are using money.

    A peer to peer payment system would not require that you have an account with some corporation. It would associate a person with a GPG or PGP key, and whether or not to trust the IOU or payment would be up to the receiving party, using something like PGP's web of trust. In that case the account creation, decisions about trustworthyness, and all the other details of a payment system are pushed down to the user level -- each person can be his own bank, so to speak, and they are all equal in the eyes of the protocol and system (but not in the eyes of other users, perhaps). That's peer to peer.