PayPal Rules Online Payments

Internet titan PayPal continues to rule online payments in the United States. According to the Statista Global Consumer Survey, 37 percent of all U.S. respondents said they had used the service at least once in the last twelve months. This makes PayPal more than twice as popular as peer-to-peer payment platform Venmo, which PayPal acquired in 2012. Peer-to-peer payments have also been available on Paypal along with several other features, showing a wider trend for online payment providers to ditch specializations and instead provide a range of features.

Just in June of this year, Apple Pay announced a new payment plan scheme, thereby entering the "buy now, pay later" market. Swedish provider Klarna is growing in the United States on a similar model after having started out as a provider of instant online payments in Europe as an alternative to credit cards, which are not as widespread there. Afterpay is a third buy-now, pay-later provider that is vying for costumers by offering interest-free payment plans.

While startups like Klarna and Afterpay still only recorded use in the single digits in the U.S., the payment providers of Amazon, Apple and Google were used by 12 percent of Americans each.