Although millions of Brits will already be familiar with the concept of using PayPal to buy items via safe shopping online, a new development sees the provider’s distinctly branded mobile service get its first full e-commerce integration.

Engadget reports that PayPal-owned mobile payments app, Venmo, has this week been approved for use in conjunction with shopping sites, expanding upon its existing features which allow users to exchange small amounts of money with one another.

While Venmo was originally envisioned as a convenient way for friends to swap cash digitally, this move will now see it enter the world of e-commerce, albeit with understandably close ties to PayPal itself.

Customers in the US will be able to harness Venmo by selecting PayPal as the payment option at the checkout, at which point they can use their separate Venmo account to complete the transaction.

What makes this even more attractive than simply sticking with PayPal itself is that Venmo users will also be able to pay for items in part, with other users making up the rest of the balance. So for friends who want to split the cost of ordering something via safe shopping online, this could be a truly convenient way of achieving this.

For the time being, this service is only being offered to people living in North America, but since PayPal is a global company it could well roll it out more broadly in the near future.

Earlier this month, it emerged that mobile payments were quickly outpacing the use of physical cash and coins in China, and it is through services like Venmo that a similar state of affairs is likely to be achieved in the UK and the rest of the western world over the course of the next few years.