Articles
Paypal
PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which it charges a fee.
On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska in the U.S.; Dublin, Ireland; and Berlin, Germany.
As of the end of Q4 2006, PayPal operates in 103 markets, and it manages over 133 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 17 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, Pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Czech Koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.
Residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:
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PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
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PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.
It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.
Although PayPal's corporate headquarters are located in San Jose, PayPal's operations center is located near Omaha, Nebraska, where the company employs more than 2,000 people as of 2007. PayPal's international headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland. The company also recently opened a technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
PayPal's headquarters in San Jose were hit by a small bomb on the evening of Halloween 2006 which shattered a window but caused no injuries.
Liberty Reserve
Liberty Reserve is an online payment system and provider of digital gold currency (LR-gold). They are an offshore company incorporated in Costa Rica, launching their USD backed digital currency (LR-USD) in 2002. Their gold backed digital currency was launched in 2005. Liberty Reserve is a member of the Global Digital Currency
Association (GDCA), a voluntary regulatory body in the industry. Liberty Reserve's web site is suffering a massive DDoS attack since May 1, 2008 according to the information provided on their blog. It's not the first time the site is under a DDoS attack, the blog talks also about implementing a permanent solution to the problem.
Alertpay
AlertPay a privately owned and managed company founded in 2004, is an internet payment system enabling any business or consumer with email to send and receive internet payments securely, quickly and cost-effectively. With its office headquarters in Montreal, Canada, AlertPay is available to users all around world.
AlertPay enables any business or consumer with email to send and receive internet payments securely, quickly and cost-effectively. Members can use their accounts to purchase goods and services from merchant sites, send money to family and/or friends, and even handle payments at auction sites such as eBay and Yahoo. AlertPay also offers an Escrow service available to members for high ticket purchases.
The AlertPay's affiliate program is remarkable in rewarding members repeatedly as their referrals use their accounts; unlike current companies who simply provide a one time referral bonus. AlertPay strives to become the global leader in online payments by providing critical services missing in the industry today: account safety, intelligent customer service and competitive fees.
E-Gold
E-Gold is a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. under e-gold Ltd., and is a system which allows the instant transfer of gold ownership between users. e-gold Ltd. is incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles. According to the company's website, as of April 2007, e-gold had 112,188 oz (3,492.0 kilograms) of gold and 138,567 oz (4,313.1 kg) of silver in storage, which is worth approximately US$86 million. There are typically 66,000 e-gold spends each day totalling 15,000 oz (470 kg), which is about US$10.5 million. There are over three million e-gold accounts of which about one quarter are active. On 27 April 2007, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. indicted e-gold Ltd and its owners on charges of money laundering, conspiracy, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. e-gold, however, claims that the charges are groundless, and has responded to the allegations.