The news: PayPal launched PayPal World, a global platform linking major international payment systems and digital wallets.

PayPal World’s partners include Argentina’s Mercado Pago, India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), China’s Tenpay Global, PayPal, and Venmo.

The first phase of PayPal World finally unites the PayPal-Venmo ecosystems—so users of both can send money back and forth to either platform. (Previously, this was only possible using the PYUSD stablecoin.)

What this means for PayPal users: International shopping and money transfers are about to get much simpler for the 2 billion users across the partner wallets and networks. 

No longer stymied by international merchants not accepting their local wallets and networks, users can use PayPal World to complete purchases while traveling abroad or send money overseas.

Boons for businesses: While other payments systems may require investments and new tech to onboard, PayPal World is ready made for merchants. 

The global digital wallet connector will be automatically incorporated into PayPal’s checkout and money transfer systems.

Our take: While PayPal’s starting list of key partnerships represents Latin America, India, and China, the payment provider could penetrate further into European markets by tying up with the European Payments Initiative and the Wero wallet—as well as with top US wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay or the nascent Paze.

PayPal’s ability to remove friction and expand its market for both merchants and consumers sets up PayPal World up for easy adoption that could yield a big boost to its global volume.