eBay international is consolidating its dominant position in online payments with the purchase of the number two global online payments brand, Bill Me Later, for US$820 million in cash and approximately US$125 million worth of outstanding options.Bill Me Later enables online retailers to offer transactional credit to consumers at the point of sale by underwriting the deal with credit. The credit is provided by CIT Bank in Salt Lake City, Utah.eBay will run Bill Me Later as a business unit of its subsidiary PayPal, the number one online payments brand. PayPal will get immediate access to Bill Me Later's 1000 web merchants, which include many of the top tier US retailers and travel sites.Amanda Pires, a spokeswoman for PayPal in the US told The Sheet yesterday that the initial plan for the service was to remain US only."Ideally we would like to extend Bill Me Later beyond the United States but that's not going to happen in the near term," said Pires."It is a credit based service, you buy now and pay for it when your budget allows. The market for that kind of service is different depending on what region or country you are in."Bill Me Later claims to have a much lower default rate than traditional consumer credit models. "The consumer gets approved for that particular purchase, they don't get approved for a line of credit like a credit card," said Pires.According to research findings from Javelin Strategy & Research released by eBay, Bill Me Later consumers have 28 to 46 per cent higher repeat usage than other payment offerings. .  A study conducted by Northstar Research Partners commissioned by PayPal showed that 56 per cent of users are likely to purchase from a retail site if a deferred payment option is available.