By Peter Kent
Online spending in Britain will more than double in the next 18 months, according to PayPal.
The internet payment service released the results of its PayPal UK Online Retail Report, which was carried out by Experian.
It found that online spending in Britain is now worth £8.9 billion but predicted that this will boom by 137 per cent to hit as high as £21.3 billion by the close of 2011.
Over the last six months, 31 per cent of internet shoppers have carried out most or all of their financial services purchases online.
Managing director of PayPal UK Carl Scheible said that it is "hardly surprising" that consumers have used the internet to find better deals in the economic downturn.
Earlier this month, PayPal released tips for online shoppers to identify phishing emails.
These include claims that the recipient must respond quickly to avoid losing their account or that an unauthorised transaction has taken place, as well as generic greetings rather than personalised ones.
