Payment service giant PayPal is to this week launch a software tool that will allow online merchants to take advantage of the secure PayPal payment mechanism, even if they do not directly accept PayPal payments, reports Reuters.

The new PayPal Secure Card, developed in conjunction with credit card issuer MasterCard, resides on the user’s computer and is able to detect when a user has reached a checkout page. The software is then activated and generates a one-time secure transaction number.

The mechanism allows the user to automatically and safely fill out the checkout payment form using details that are stored centrally on PayPal’s servers.

The new service is set to dramatically increase the use and scope of PayPal, whose parent company is online auction giant ebay, across the ecommerce world.

PayPal’s latest move follows the launch of a similar initiative from search engine titan Google, whose Google Checkout is designed to enhance the convenience of online shopping by automatically filling out shoppers’ financial details.

Such schemes, that allow a secure payment mechanism to be leveraged across a range of third-party ecommerce sites, provide a convenience-driven means of enhancing online security and – as such – represents one of the more commercially compelling ways in which ecommerce can hope to minimise the threat of online crime to the industry.

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