Increasing numbers of Britons are using the online payment service PayPal to make credit card purchases, new research has revealed.
The growing popularity of using credit cards online has been highlighted by a new study.
According to research from Nielsen Online, payments company PayPal saw a 50 percent increase in business for the year to February 2009, compared with the same period 12 months earlier. PayPal allows consumers to use credit cards online.
This increase in traffic also means that PayPal is "far and away the most popular financial services website", Alex Burmaster from Nielsen Online said.
"The number of unique visitors accessing the PayPal site in the last 12 months has increased by an impressive 50 percent, meaning that PayPal has substantially improved its lead over other financial websites compared to the same time last year," he claimed. "PayPal has added over two million unique visitors in the last year - almost six times more than any of the other leading online payment providers."
Despite the growing trend for online shopping, other commentators have warned that there are also risks involved with the technology.
Last month, Mary Landesman, senior security researcher from ScanSafe, warned that many people are putting themselves at risk of being defrauded by placing large amounts of personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
