PayPal to support Amex cards

Person-to-person payment company PayPal has teamed up with American Express to expand payment options for customers. The agreement is designed to show growing confidence in online payments.

PayPal users can now use an Amex card to make money transfers via their PayPal accounts. The company already supports Visa and Mastercard payments.

"By partnering with Amex, PayPal users will now have an additional choice of payment for secure, online transactions," said Todd Pearson, senior vice president of financial services at PayPal.

Traditional online payment models, particularly credit card payments, are not suitable for person-to-person money transfers, and alternative payment methods have been developed.

PayPal enables money transfers between private individuals or companies as long as they have an email account. It is a popular payment network for online auction websites and is increasingly being used at other ecommerce sites for the sale of goods, services and digital content.

The company said that its members typically send $10m per day in around 200,000 transactions.