PayPal to create 200 jobs at Blanchardstown base

PAYPAL’S IRISH-BASED European services business earned profits of €5.7 million last year, the latest figures show.

The electronic payments specialist, owned by eBay, said yesterday it intended to create a further 200 jobs at its base in Blanchardstown, Dublin, where it already employs 1,350 people to service its European operations.

The company said the new jobs would be in customer services, risk operations, financial operations, and sales and account management.

The company’s most recent returns show that PayPal Europe Services had a turnover of €91.76 million in 2010, an increase of almost 25 per cent on 2009, when revenues were €73.6 million.

The figures show that it made a pretax profit of €5.7 million in 2010, 25 per cent ahead of the previous year.

After a corporation tax charge of €256,000, it booked a financial gain for the year of €5.4 million, 37 per cent ahead of the €3.9 million surplus it recorded in 2009.

PayPal manages and safeguards electronic payments made to its parent, online auction site eBay, and other businesses. The Irish operation’s turnover is made up of fees charged for providing these services. The returns and yesterday’s announcement indicate that the company’s business has continued growing this year.

The directors’ report states that the business is expanding at a faster rate than the overall e-commerce industry.

The PayPal group earned revenues of $1 billion (€700 million) in the three months from the start of April to the end of June this year.

Yesterday’s statement said the company’s European operations, headquartered in Dublin, contributed to this performance.

Its balance sheet shows that, on December 31st, net assets were €26.7 million, more than 30 per cent higher than 12 months earlier.

PayPal Europe Services is a direct subsidiary of PayPal International, which is also based in Blanchardstown. That company is a subsidiary of the San Francisco-based group.

By the end of last year, PayPal Europe Services employed more than 1,240 people and had a salary and welfare bill of €59 million. The company’s headcount a year earlier was 987.

Louise Phelan, head of PayPal’s European operations, said the group had grown substantially in the Republic since it established a base here in 2003. “This is the second new jobs announcement we’ve had this year alone.”

State development agency IDA Ireland is backing PayPal’s operations here. IDA chief executive Barry O’Leary said the company’s success underlined the State’s ability to continue to attract “high-calibre foreign direct investment”.

Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton welcomed the jobs announcement, adding that he hoped it would be “replicated right across the country in the coming years”.