The split between eBay and Paypal may be looming, but it seems as if it will be almost business as usual for its Irish workforce.

The decision to divide the two companies, hiving Paypal off into a separate entity from marketplace eBay, was taken last year, but the two companies will continue to work closely together to ensure consumers don’t suffer as a result.

Ebay chief executive John Donahoe said Ireland remained a key territory for the company.

“This is a really important country for us, both for the business but more importantly for our team mates who serve our global business,” he said. “We’ve gone from 26 employees in Ireland in 2003 to over 3,000 today. The reason for that is quite simple. We’ve had a great experience having really talented people in the Irish community serve our customers.”

In 2012, the firm said it would add 1,000 jobs and has plans to expand further by 2018. Those expansion plans are still on track, Mr Donahoe said.

Seamless experience

“The implications for Ireland is there won’t be that much change. Our Irish team-mates serve eBay and Paypal customers, in many cases an eBay customer who is using Paypal. What they try to do is provide seamless experience, and that will continue, even once the companies are separate. They’ll share data in ways that help serve the customer to provide a seamless experience,” he said. “I think Ireland will continue to be an important market for top talent.”

In January, the company announced that it was cutting 7 per cent of its workforce worldwide – about 2,400 roles – with jobs to go in its eBay Marketplaces, Paypal and eBay Enterprise units. There were fears about how the cuts would impact Ireland, but Mr Donahoe said all reductions that were planned had taken place.

Ebay has already begun to prepare for the split, which Mr Donahoe said was likely to occur in the third quarter. It has already sent out an updated user agreement and privacy notice for eBay customers to reflect the upcoming changes, including an addition that provides for information sharing between the two entities and alterations to how the companies can handle disputes.

Increasing competition

The split will allow the companies to grow independently, he said. Paypal is facing increasing competition in the payments market, with

Apple

Pay in the US and

Samsung

Pay due to launch in Europe later this year. However, Mr Donahoe said the payments market was enormous and the move to digital payments was “pure market growth opportunity”.

“Initially it was just digitising on your laptop and desktop, now increasingly on your mobile device, and soon to be potentially on your mobile device in the physical world. That’s what Paypal is the best in the world at,” he said. “Yes there’s going to be different parties involved in the payment landscape but we think Paypal is very well-positioned as the market leader. It’s not a zero-sum game.”