Turnover up but profits plummet at PayPal’s Irish unit

One of Ireland’s largest multinational employers, PayPal reported sharply lower profits for its main Irish subsidiary last year.

The online payment company, which employs more than 2,000 people at its European headquarters in Blanchardstown, Dublin, recorded a €5.9 million pre-tax profit for the 12 months ending December 2015, according to recently filed accounts for PayPal Europe Services Limited.

This comes after profits rose 6 per cent to €11.9 million a year earlier.

Turnover for the Irish-based unit rose by more than 10 per cent to €168 million last year from €152 million in 2014.

"This filing does not reflect the overall business performance of PayPal in Ireland, nor across Europe. It only relates to the supporting functions based in our operations centres in Ireland," a company spokesman told The Irish Times.

PayPal Europe Services Limited provides customer support, risk operations, and corporate administrative services to the wider group.

During the 12 months under review, the average number of employees at the unit increased to 2,320 from 2,184 with staff costs rising to €102 million from €91.8 million.

Redundancy costs of €2.3 million were included in the 2015 accounts.

A breakdown of employees by activity shows 1,256 people were employed in customer support roles, with 897 in admin-related activities, 132 in sales and marketing, and 32 in product development.

The company announced 100 new jobs for its Ballycoolin operation earlier this year as it proceeds with a plan to increase headcount to 3,000 in Ireland by 2018.

Louise Phelan, PayPal's vice-president of global operations in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa (EMEA), who has leads the Irish operations was recently appointed to a new role that sees here taking responsibility for growing revenue and customers for the group in more than 100 countries. While Ms Phelan will continue to be based in Dublin, Maeve Dorman is to take responsibility for many of her local duties.

Founded in 1998, PayPal enables individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online. Recent figures show more than 188 million PayPal accounts were active worldwide in the second quarter of 2016, a period in which the group recorded revenue growth of 15 per cent to $2.65 billion.

eBay spun off PayPal last year having acquired the company for $1.2 billion in October 2002.