Mobile payments accounted for almost one-third of all money moving through PayPal in Q4, covering $31 billion worth of transactions, the company reported.

Speaking on its quarterly results call, CEO Dan Schulman (pictured) said the company saw strong growth across mobile payments and transfer services in the three months to end-December. He added the mobile unit is becoming an important differentiator for PayPal in the wider eCommerce sector.

Mobile represented 31 per cent of PayPal’s total transaction value for the quarter, with the $31 billion processed up 53 per cent on the same period of 2015. Among its busiest periods for the year were the days between Thanksgiving (24 November) and Cyber Monday (28 November) when the company processed more than $2 billion worth of mobile sales – one-third of the combined transaction value across all of its platforms during the five day period.

Schulman said: “Mobile is redefining the face of retail and with the worldwide adoption of smartphones, consumers have all the power of a bank branch in the palm of their hand.”

He also pointed to the company’s significant growth in new payment platforms, with its contextual payments play Braintree reaching 420 million registered users and its remittance service Xoom expanding the scope of its service to offer payments from the US to Japan. PayPal’s P2P “social payments” platform Venmo processed $2.6 billion worth of transactions in Q4, a 126 per cent year-on-year rise.