PayPal on Thursday opened its online payments system to third-party developers so they can embed a variety of PayPal payment mechanisms into Internet-based services.

The widely used payment provider, a division of eBay, formally announced the Adaptive Payments System at its Platform Preview Event in San Jose, California, after confirming some details about it earlier this month. PayPal began making APIs (application programming interfaces) available to developers and will add "dozens more" later this year, said Osama Bedier, vice president of platform and emerging technology.

"PayPal will be the first and only global payment service open to third-party developers," PayPal President Scott Thompson said at the launch event, which was webcast. The company intends to help developers implement payment tools that go beyond traditional e-commerce purchases to support a wider variety of services.