I run a small business in Canada, and a hundred times this. For a long time my options were: PayPal, or sign a contract with a bank to get a binder with some instructions to use a horrible API. There may have been some weird options like e-gold, but nothing I could pitch to a business user. PayPal was easy to set up, captured credit cards so I didn't need to think about PCI, and did a non-zero amount of work to block fraud. We've since migrated to start preferring Stripe over PayPal, but it was Paypal all the way for the first 5 years.
> They ignore all legislation. They are pretty much a bank for free.
They're more regulated than all but a handful of international banks, and it's not at all free.
PayPal is a licensed money transmitter in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Most of those states have bond requirements for MTAs, typically six figure deposits. They're subject to 52 different regulatory agencies in the US, in addition to Regulation E consumer protections and the USA Patriot Act federally. Their US<->international transfers are overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control like any bank. They're not an ordinary bank in the US only because many years ago a judge ruled that they don't qualify to be one by the nature of their business; they tried unsuccessfully to be licensed as one in order to get FDIC insurance on deposits.
They are a licensed bank in all of the EU, with a bank charter in Luxembourg, regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. In Australia, they're licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as a financial product and by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority as a purchased payment facility provider, which is a type of authorized depository institution (i.e. bank). In most of southeast Asia, they operate under their subsidiary PayPal Pte. Ltd. which is a licensed stored value facility regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. They operate in 203 markets in total, most of which have separate financial regulations and regulatory bodies PayPal has to comply with.
I used 2checkout.com for years and years for a small business in Canada. Switched to Beanstream.com years ago (lower fees, but doesn't accept amex in usd).
I'd never use or recommend paypal for any business. Their history of seizing funds, freezing accounts, and pulling money from bank accounts is atrocious.
Stripe only launched in Canada late 2012: https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada So did braintree: https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/braintree-in-europe-a...
And we're america's hat. Many countries are still bereft of options.
(disclosure: I'm now a stripe employee, opinions are my own)