PayPal is to launch its new PayPal Mobile service in the UK.

The new service, launched in America earlier this month will allow customers to pay and transfer money via a text message anytime, from anywhere, using their mobile telephones.

The company is hoping that it will making paying for CDs, DVDs, shoes and apparel easy.

Users will pay by sending product codes via text message.

Companies like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Bravo, MTV, and the NBA Store in the US are already offering items for purchase with Text to Buy.

PayPal Mobile also enables users to Text to Give to charities such as Amnesty International, Starlight Starbright and UNICEF.

"With the overwhelming popularity of mobile phones, the time has never been better for the merging of ecommerce and wireless devices", said PayPal President Jeff Jordan. "PayPal already has more than 100 million accounts worldwide, and our customers have already entrusted their personal and financial information to PayPal. Now, making payments is as easy as sending a text message anytime, from anywhere for the millions of customers that prefer to use PayPal."

Every PayPal Mobile payment is PIN-protected and backed by PayPal's state-of-the-art fraud prevention system the company said.

With PayPal Mobile, financial information is never shared with the recipient. Each user's financial information is stored on PayPal's secure servers, not on the mobile telephone, so even if the telephone is lost or stolen, the user's PayPal account remains secure.

For more information about PayPal Mobile, visit https://www.paypal.com/mobile.