PayPal announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with global wallet companies to create a new platform called"PayPal World"A platform designed to simplify cross-border trade, the platform will allow users to pay others using local wallets and payment systems.
Launch partners include India's NPCI International Payments Limited, which operates the mobile payments framework UPI (Unified Payments Interface), China's Tenpay (the payment arm of Tencent), which operates the WeChat payment ecosystem in India, as well as PayPal and Venmo, the company said.
The company has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Latin American fintech Mercado Pago, which provides credit card and mobile payment services, and final details of the deal are being finalized.
Through these partnerships, PayPal hopes to reach more than 2 billion users worldwide.
“PayPal World is a first-of-its-kind payments ecosystem that will bring together many of the world’s largest payment systems and digital wallets onto a single platform,” Alex Chriss, PayPal president and CEO, said in a statement.
The challenges of cross-border money transfers are extremely complex, but this platform will bring convenience to nearly 2 billion consumers and businesses. We believe the changes we are announcing today have the potential, over time, to truly change the industry landscape.
Through PayPal World, PayPal and Venmo users will be able to send money to anyone around the world, even if they are not PayPal users, the fintech company said. For example, when they travel in China, they can pay local merchants using PayPal on the WeChat Pay network. On the other hand, if an Indian customer purchases from a US website, they can checkout using PayPal and pay through a UPI wallet.
The total user base and transaction volume of these wallet systems are huge. For example, Mercado Pago’s total payment volume in the first quarter of 2025 was $58.3 billion. According to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), UPI transactions exceeded $238 billion in June alone.
China’s Tenpay is also working to create a better remittance framework and enable cross-border peer-to-peer payments.
Tenpay Global CEO Yang Wenhui said: "We are very pleased that Tencent's cross-border payment platform Tenpay Global will support PayPal and Venmo users to pay by scanning the WeChat payment QR code, which will further expand the transaction channels of global digital wallets in mainland China. In addition to payment business, Tenpay Global will also deepen cooperation with PayPal World in the field of remittances."
PayPal World will launch the platform this fall with its partners. Venmo users will be able to pay for online and offline purchases at merchants that support PayPal payments by 2026, the company said.