PayPal Stories Archive

 

The world is growing increasingly interconnected. Commerce, communication, travel, information and innovation are all connecting people around the world in various ways.

 

Examples of this growing interconnectedness can be seen in schools across Africa -- where schoolchildren can now get math lessons online through the California-based Khan Academy. It can be seen among people across the world who are connecting and sharing information via social networks like Twitter and Facebook. And it can also seen via cross-border transactions, where people and businesses are connecting across country lines using services like One Touch™ with PayPal.

 

While globalization continues, the ways in which it is taking shape is evolving. Today, at an event at New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., the McKinsey Global Institute released a report on globalization titled: Digital Globalization: The New Age of Global Flows.

 

The report found that global flows are shifting. Though cross-border flows of international trade and finance have slowed following the start of the global recession in 2007, digital flows of information, ideas and innovation are rising steadily.

 

Interestingly, the places where globalization is growing is also expanding. While globalization was once dominated by large, multinational companies that could afford the high associated costs, today, emerging economies are growing increasingly global. One telling example, according to 2013 data, is that 68 percent of cross-border PayPal transactions involved a sender or receiver in an emerging economy.

 

Democratized access to digital platforms and tools that are more scalable and financially inclusive are driving much of this globalization. The McKinsey study found that companies like PayPal, eBay and Facebook are enabling businesses of all sizes to seamlessly connect with customers by providing platforms and tools that democratize access for smaller companies – with reduced costs for cross-border communications and trade and seamless access to a global market. These tools enable startups and smaller businesses to effectively compete on a global scale.

 

“Digital platforms change the economies of doing business across borders, bringing down the cost of international interactions and transactions. They create markets and user communities with global scale, providing businesses with a huge base of potential customers and effective ways to reach them,” the report found.

 

You can read the full report here.