At present, Israeli buyers have only limited options for paying through PayPal.
Online auction company eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) has cleared the way to open an office of PayPal in Israel, the company's online international money transfer and payments unit. Leumi Card VP Oded Zahavi will run PayPal Israel.
Although eBay has a Hebrew-language site eBay Israel with product prices listed in both dollars and shekels, as well as a search function for popular items, Israeli buyers have only limited options for paying through PayPal. They have to open an account using an international credit card, but they cannot withdraw money accumulated in the account because PayPal has no agreement with Israeli commercial banks.
Sources inform ''Globes'' that PayPal president Scott Thompson visited Israel a month ago. He met executives of Israeli companies, including price comparison site Zap, in order to learn how the online shopping Israeli market works, and to come up with a functioning model for boosting eBay sales.
eBay acquired PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 13, 2009
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