What does PayPal do
PayPal is a digital payment service that lets individuals and businesses send, receive and manage money online without handing their bank or card details to the other party. It sits in the middle of a transaction: you pay PayPal, and PayPal pays the seller.
Because you log in to your PayPal account at checkout instead of typing card numbers on each website, the merchant never sees your card or bank information. The service has separate uses for personal users and for businesses.
- Online shopping: Individuals can pay on websites, including international ones, by signing in to PayPal rather than entering card details.
- Sending money: Personal users can move funds to friends or family using only the recipient's email address or phone number.
- Buyer protection: If an item never arrives or a purchase turns out to be a scam, PayPal's buyer protection programs can help the buyer.
- Accepting payments: Businesses can let customers pay in a range of currencies and through payment methods used around the world.
- Data security: PayPal uses encryption to protect the financial information of businesses and their customers.
How PayPal works also depends on the country. In India, freelancers and businesses use PayPal India to get paid by overseas clients in foreign currencies, but PayPal does not support domestic money transfers between users within India. Anyone in India reading a PayPal overview should keep this limit in mind, since the service there is built for cross-border receipts rather than local payments.
Before opening an account, decide whether you need a personal account for shopping and sending money, or a business account for accepting customer payments, and check the fees that apply to the transactions you plan to make.