PayPal has opened its international headquarters in Singapore to represent all of its business outside the United States. It will also be recruiting at least 100 professionals in Singapore this year.

Speaking at the opening of the company’s business headquarters and technology development centre at Suntec City on 17 March 2010, Mr Scott Thompson, President of PayPal, said the announcements were in line with the company’s plans to grow its investments in the region.

Mr Farhad Irani: Our success in the region will continue to rely on partnering with merchants, financial services companies and local governments.

PayPal will be doubling the number of employees in the Asia Pacific from 1,000 currently to over 2,000 by 2010. In Singapore, it will be focusing its recruitment efforts on expertise in technology, product development, infrastructure design, risk and engineering. The company’s other offices in the region are located in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Taiwan.

According to PayPal, Singapore serves as an excellent operational hub for PayPal’s international operations due to its economically strategic location, its friendly business environment, political stability and world-class infrastructure.

“We are excited that PayPal has chosen Singapore as the centre from which to double its business in Asia,” said Mr Leo Yip, chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). “This is another example of how Singapore plans to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation.”

PayPal processed more than US$6 billion of total payment volume in Asia Pacific in 2009, an increase of 38 per cent from 2008.

Mr Farhad Irani, Vice President of PayPal Asia Pacific, said while the company’s growth in the region to date has largely been driven by its cross border business, it expects the domestic business in many of its Asian markets to “explode” in the coming years.  “Our success in the region will continue to rely on partnering with merchants, financial services companies and local governments to deliver the right services for consumers.”

During the opening of its international headquarters, PayPal also announced an agreement with DBS Bank to offer four million DBS/POSB customers the option of paying for their online purchases via PayPal. By the middle of 2010, DBS/POSB customers will be able to debit their DBS/POSB bank accounts to fund their PayPal accounts.

As part of the company’s plans to grow its e-commerce ecosystem across Asia Pacific, it also announced that the PayPal mobile payment software development kit (SDK) will be made available to developers in the region from the second quarter of 2010. The mobile SDK, which will initially support iPhone, will allow developers to easily add a checkout button on applications to accept mobile payments without the need to collect financial information from customers.