SAN JOSE, USA: Today PayPal announced plans to open its payment platform to third-party developers with the release of new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that allow developers to embed PayPal's secure global payment system into their applications and platforms.

In opening up the PayPal platform, developers can now create new ways to send and receive payments for services beyond traditional e-commerce. According to a recent McKinsey report, the global payments market represents a $30 trillion opportunity.

"Until now, developer innovation has been stifled by the barriers payment systems impose," said Scott Thompson, president of PayPal. "With an open platform, we're solving fundamental challenges people face when trying to pay or get paid and giving people the tools to create new business models for their innovations."

PayPal has spent over a decade creating a secure, global payments network for e–commerce and person-to-person transactions, which seamlessly integrates 27 financial networks, 15,000 local banks, 190 global markets and supports 19 currencies.

"The Windows Azure platform provides developers with a scalable, interoperable cloud development environment to build and deploy services and applications," said Yousef Khalidi, Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft.

"By allowing the developer community to take advantage of the PayPal adaptive payment platform through the Windows Azure platform, developers will have the opportunity to utilize a billing solution for the Windows Azure platform services they offer by providing customers with an easy on-line payment program option," added Khalidi.

Several developers have integrated PayPal's new APIs as part of a beta program. Some of these companies include Twitpay, a Twitter-based payment service; LiveOps, with its new on-demand workforce service called LiveWork; and Microsoft's Windows Azure platform, a cloud development environment.

PayPal also wants to hear ideas for innovative and interesting ways to pay in the future from its community of users. Anyone with ideas is invited to submit them to PayPal and the world via Twitter with the hashtag #changehowwepay and can view responses at www.changehowwepay.com.