Paypal Europe, c'est pour bientôt !

Citation : We would like to update you on our preparations for the anticipated future launch of PayPal (Europe) Ltd., a UK company, as the service provider for PayPal customers in the European Union.

This is a positive development that would help us provide our European customers with improved services to satisfy local needs, both online and through our new European Customer Service Centre in Dublin.

We anticipate that PayPal (Europe) Ltd. will begin operating in February 2004, subject to receiving authorisation from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK. Please note, no action will be necessary on your part. You will be able to continue using your PayPal account as you do today.

Your existing relationship

Until PayPal (Europe) Ltd. starts operating, your customer relationship continues to be with PayPal, Inc., a US company regulated as a money transmitter by various states in the US, under the PayPal User Agreement governed by California law.

In June 2003, we applied to the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) for authorisation for PayPal (Europe) Ltd. to operate as an Electronic Money Institution (ELMI) in the European Union. This process is still in progress.

A new customer relationship

With the introduction of our new UK company, your customer relationship would automatically reside with PayPal (Europe) Ltd. instead of PayPal, Inc. We would also introduce a new User Agreement and Privacy Policy, similar to the current agreements but without US-specific references and modified to comply with UK financial services and consumer protection requirements.

While this transition is at least 30 days away, we encourage you to:


understand your rights and obligations. Please preview the PayPal (Europe) Ltd. User Agreement and Privacy Policy


learn about the key changes and how they may affect you. Please visit the PayPal (Europe) Ltd. FAQs page as well as the Policy Updates section for more details.


If you do not wish to hold a PayPal (Europe) Ltd. account and would prefer to continue your relationship with PayPal, Inc., you may only do so if your primary address in your PayPal account, as of 1 February 2004, is a legitimate postal address within the United States.

If your primary address is not in the United States and you do not wish to receive services from PayPal (Europe) Ltd., you may close your account at any time, either before or after the transition. To do so, log in to your PayPal account and click 'Profile' to access the relevant link.

As we await authorisation from the FSA, we wish to inform you in advance of our plans and how these may affect you. We will notify you of further developments in the coming weeks. Until then, thank you for using PayPal.