For consumers: your domestic wallet accepted at millions more businesses around the world
For much of the world's population, international shopping and money transfers are not just difficult, at times they are impossible. While digital wallets and payments have become the preferred payment method in many markets domestically, consumers still require an international payment method to shop overseas. Sending money across borders can be similarly frustrating, with consumers facing fees, barriers, and delays. With PayPal World, consumers will enjoy benefits including:
- Access to shop at millions more businesses, online, in-store, and with AI agents,
- Pay international businesses using their domestic payment system or wallet of choice and local currency,
- Seamless money transfers to users across borders.
For millions of businesses: access nearly two billion consumers with your existing integration
Until now, businesses had to invest and build technology each time they added a new digital payment system or wallet to their checkout. Accepting more digital payments meant more work, and missing a popular option at checkout meant losing sales. With no additional integration, PayPal World will connect millions of businesses to digital payment system and wallet users worldwide, starting with PayPal and Venmo. Benefits will include:
- Expanded reach into new markets and nearly two billion users,
- Increased payment options and sales – online, in-store, and with AI agents,
- Businesses automatically accept new digital payment options at checkout when more partners join the platform, with no additional development work required.
PayPal World: a technology-agnostic platform for cross border commerce
PayPal World is expected to go live beginning this fall with all partners interoperable with PayPal and Venmo. The platform is purpose-built to allow further interoperability if partner wallets decide to pursue that in the future, further expanding reach and acceptance across borders. Leveraging open commerce APIs, PayPal World solves the complexity of cross border commerce with a cloud native, multi-region deployment architecture that ensures low latency and high availability worldwide. The platform is designed with robust safety and security capabilities, creating a device and technology-agnostic environment for all partners.
PayPal World is ready for the future of commerce. Digital payment systems and wallets will play an essential role in enabling agentic shopping, where consumers can shop and pay in conversation with AI agents using their digital wallet. In addition, the platform will be compatible with the latest technologies and commerce experiences including, over time, dynamic payment buttons and stablecoin.
The first payment systems and digital wallets that will launch with PayPal World are (in alphabetical order):
- Mercado Pago (MOU signed – further details being scoped)
- NPCI International Payments Limited (UPI)
- PayPal
- Tenpay Global
- Venmo
"PayPal World is a first-of-its-kind payments ecosystem that will bring together many of the world's largest payment systems and digital wallets on a single platform. It is testament to the passion our partners share for an inclusive, global digital economy and has the potential to revolutionize cross-border commerce," said Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal. "The challenge of moving money across borders is incredibly complex, and yet this platform will make it so simple for nearly two billion consumers and businesses. We believe the changes we are announcing today have the potential to be a real game changer over time. We can't wait to welcome many more global partners, wallets, and their users soon."
"We're thrilled about this tremendous opportunity. This partnership brings together our collective strengths to streamline cross-border commerce, building on the success each of us has achieved in our respective markets," said Osvaldo Gimenez, CEO of Mercado Pago.
To scale the development of this innovative platform, PayPal and Mercado Pago are collaborating to explore opportunities in cross-border payments through PayPal World.
Speaking on the development, Ritesh Shukla, Managing Director and CEO of NPCI International Payments Limited, said, "The integration of UPI on PayPal World's platform will mark a significant step in expanding UPI's global footprint. It aligns with our vision to make cross-border payments more seamless, secure, and inclusive. This collaboration will enhance convenience for Indian users making payments abroad and enable global businesses and merchants to tap into a growing base of UPI users."
"We are glad that Tenpay Global, Tencent's cross-border payment platform, will support users of PayPal and Venmo in making payments by scanning Weixin Pay1 QR codes, further expanding access for global digital wallets to transact in the mainland of China. In addition to payments, Tenpay Global will deepen its collaboration with PayPal World in remittances," said Wenhui Yang, CEO of Tenpay Global.
PayPal and Venmo become seamlessly interoperable
As part of PayPal World, PayPal and Venmo will become seamlessly interoperable for the first time, expanding access to global peer-to-peer payments. This new functionality will allow PayPal and Venmo users to send money to each other, anywhere in the world. This marks a pivotal moment for Venmo and PayPal, connecting one of the most iconic social payments platforms to the full scale of PayPal's global network.
In addition to peer-to-peer payments, coming in 2026, Venmo users will be able to shop both online and in-store at millions of merchants globally that accept PayPal. For merchants, it's a new way to reach Venmo's base of younger, urban, affluent, and digitally native consumers. This will expand the reach of PayPal's two-sided network, driving more demand for merchants and offering consumers more choice and flexibility.
Connecting Venmo to PayPal World is the next step in expanding its utility and unlocking more value for both consumers and merchants. It will enable everything from everyday payments and in-store commerce to international money movement on a global scale.
PayPal World illustrative use cases
- When traveling or shopping across borders, consumers will be able to use their domestic payment system or digital wallet to pay.
- For example, a PayPal user goes on holiday in China.They want to grab some coffee in a cafe that accepts Weixin Pay. All they'll need to do is open their PayPal app and scan to pay.
- For example, a UPI user in India wants to buy a pair of sneakers from an online store in the USA. When they click on the PayPal button at checkout, they will see the UPI button they know to complete the transaction.
- Sending money across the world will be as simple as sending a text. For example, a Venmo user in the US wants to send money to a friend in Germany for their birthday. They open the Venmo app, type in the phone number of their friend, and select their PayPal wallet.
PayPal World is expected to go live beginning this fall, starting with partner wallets connecting to PayPal and Venmo. For more information, please visit the PayPal World website.
Notes to Editors
1 Weixin Pay is the mobile payment function of Tencent's popular social platform Weixin and one of the major payment tools in China.
Forward Looking Statements About PayPal
This announcement contains forward-looking statements about the timing, features, and anticipated benefits of PayPal World services. Forward looking statements may be identified by words such as "may," "will," "would," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend," "continue," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "project," "forecast," and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made, and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, our ability to timely enter into definitive agreements with wallet partners, the extent to which wallet partners use services offered by PayPal World, potential delays in the launch of PayPal World's services, the reaction of competitors, inability of participants to obtain necessary regulatory approvals, and unanticipated difficulties in operationalizing PayPal World.
More information about these and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements can be found in PayPal Holdings, Inc.'s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this announcement speaks only as of the date hereof. PayPal assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein.
About PayPal
PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com, https://about.pypl.com, and https://investor.pypl.com.
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SOURCE PayPal Holdings, Inc.
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