PayPal parent company eBay reported first quarter revenues in a conference call on Wednesday and the numbers were good, thanks in part to the company's offline and mobile payment activity. Overall, total payment volume was up 28 percent across PayPal's merchant services offerings and the company said it added 1 million accounts per month in the quarter ending with nearly 110 million active accounts. Net revenues increased by 29 percent to $3.3 billion.

From a mobile perspective, PayPal pointed to its offline and mobile efforts as examples of its innovation, highlighting its offline payment efforts with Home Depot and Cumberland Farms. The company said it expects mobile to account for $7 billion in processing volume this year. It said it has already signed several other large retailers to use its offline payment method and will be announcing who those retailers are towards the end of 2012.

PayPal also noted the launch of PayPal Here, the company's new mobile point-of-sale product that turns a smartphone into a mobile payment terminal. The product will be readily available in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Hong Kong during the second quarter. PayPal said 200,000 merchants have already signed up to receive a PayPal Here reader.

During the question and answer section of the earnings call, eBay CEO John Donahoe discussed the company's approach to mobile payments, especially the available technologies to make mobile payments at the point of sale. Initially, Donahoe sounded somewhat dismissive of NFC as a technology to support payments, but clarified his remarks by saying PayPal is looking at technology from a customer standpoint, not a technology standpoint.

"Our approach is we will be tender-type indifferent," Donahoe said. "If a consumer wants to pay with a card, they'll be able to pay with a card. If the consumer wants the hands-free mobile number and PIN, they'll be able to do mobile number and PIN. If the consumer wants to use their mobile phone to pay, we'll be — we will work with all the major devices, all the major operating systems and whatever last-inch technology, Bluetooth, NFC or new ones that emerge. Our goal is to give the consumer an easy payment experience. And the technology is an enabler of that, not the product."