Online payment solutions provider PayPal announced its decision to open its PayPal X global platform to developers, unveiling a series of new APIs as well as a mobile SDK to embed payments directly into iPhone applications. According to PayPal, developers can now build person-to-person solutions or business-to-business payment applications on their platform of choice, whether it's a mobile device or a social networking site. Developers can also take a cut or distribute funds from PayPal payments as they happen, and can enable buyers to send money to several people in one payment. The mobile SDK--scheduled to launch in the first half of 2010--will enable developers to integrate PayPal services into mobile apps so that consumers can purchase physical goods; PayPal adds that funds will be transferred in a matter of seconds.
New capabilities and enhancements for PayPal's Adaptive Payments APIs include currency conversion for international purchases, Pay Anyone (enabling financial and other institutions to allow customers to send money when logged in to their bank accounts, regardless of whether the customer has a PayPal account) and pre-approvals (giving developers the flexibility to create reusable payments agreements between buyers and sellers). A new developer portal, X.com, promises all the information developers need to create applications built with PayPal X. PayPal now boasts more than 78 million active accounts in 190 markets and 24 currencies worldwide.
For more on PayPal's new developer programs:
- read this release
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