Just days after the announcement of Amazon's PayPhrase, PayPal has announced PayPal X - a global initiative allowing developers to get creative with payment processing.

A few key developments are:

• Mobile software development kit (SDK). This allows developers to include PayPal directly into their mobile applications. For example, ShopSavvy just developed a new app that lets you scan a barcode for a product and then buy it directly from your iPhone.
  
• Adaptive Payment capabilities. A currency conversion utility that lets merchants accept quick payments from any of 24 currencies supported by PayPal. There's a contest running for the most innovative Adaptive Payment, where the developer stands to win $50,000.
  
• And from the PayPal blog, "A new API, Adaptive Accounts, that will make it easier for developers to create customer accounts from within their applications.  Imagine an app that raises money on Facebook, for example.  Developers can enable new account signup right in the donation flow."

Why all the new payment systems? Simply put, developers are outpacing the payment providers. Apps are exploding on the mobile space and social media offers an infinite number of options for merchants and developers.