PayPal launches new programme in Australian market

Peter Dinham
Monday, 27 April 2009 19:48

Business IT - Technology

Global online payment service, PayPal, today announced a new programme for the Australian market which it claims will boost e-commerce uptake in Australia, by allowing local organisations to get online and take advantage of the Internet to open up new revenue streams.

In Australia for the launch of its certified developer and partner programme, PayPal’s global head of alliances and vertical markets, Glenn Lim, claims the programme to “recruit developers and solution providers" is designed to "help meet the growing demand for online payments outside of the retail sector.”

Lim says that, with e-commerce expected to continue to grow in the coming years, PayPal has also made new tools and resources available to organisations such as charities, foundations, schools and universities to start accepting online payments and donations easily.

According to Lim, most organisations in Australia, "especially in the non-profit and education sectors", are yet to take full advantage of e-commerce, and while “81% of not-for-profits in Australia have a website, only 27% use it to sell goods and services online while as little as 22% use the internet for fundraising.”

Of course, PayPal’s not altruistic at all with its message of "help" for non-profits. Even though Lim claims the company has identified a gap in the market and designed the programme to “help more organisations tap into the internet’s revenue building capacity,” he reveals what is obviously the real motive for its development and launch in Australia, which is “helping to build new markets for PayPal”.

And, another dose of PR spin, with Lim further claiming that the programme will not only “help to make e-commerce more accessible to sectors such as not-for-profits, education and local government”, but, surprise, surprise, "it also fits with PayPal’s global business objectives of doubling the volume of payments over the next three years and launching into new vertical markets.”
 
PayPal claims to have more than five million account holders in Australia, and says its service is available on 30 of the top 50 e-commerce sites, with non-profits as well as schools, universities and local government also using the service.

Lim claims that to “further help Australian non-profits”, the company is also partnering with global software and services provider, Blackbaud, to launch a new, low-cost service called BlackbaudNow.

According to Lim, BlackbaudNow is scheduled for launch in Australia later this year and will enable smaller non-profits to build a sophisticated website featuring in-built PayPal payments processing.