PayPal

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PayPal

Basic information
Founded	1998
Legal Structure	Public
Industry	Financial Technology
Also known as
Official website	https://paypal.com/

PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee.

Products and subsidiaries

• PayPal Honey
• Venmo

Controversies

Steam, 2025

PayPal does not allow purchasing of Steam Games for all currencies except USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY and AUD.

Inactivity fee, 2022

PayPal charges an inactivity fee in Canada and the EU.

If you don't log in or don't have transactions for a year you will be charged $20USD each year. Then, when there are no more funds in the account, they will close your account. If you have not logged in they assume you have seen the changed terms and agree to the changes and thus the fees.

Transaction fee refunds, 2019

PayPal will no longer refund transaction fees on refunds PayPal announced they would undo this policy change, and then a few months later re-implemented it.

Privacy

In 2018, the introduction of the GDPR in Europe forced PayPal to disclose a list of third party companies they share user data with. The list includes over 600 different companies, from fraud prevention to analytics, tracking and advertising companies.

In 2025, a German study by Netzwerk Datenschutzexpertise (Data Privacy Expertise Network) found PayPal to be violating the GDPR in several instances. It lists unlawful data processing for advertising purposes, invalid consent practices, and violations of the principle "Privacy by Default", as required by Article 25 of the GDPR.