The payments subsidiary of online auction house eBay has posted ads on job boards for a business manager and a senior product manager in the 'PayPal Mobile' group.

In the ads, the company describes PayPal Mobile as "a dynamic, young 'start-up' business unit within PayPal dedicated to bringing value-added mobile payment services to consumers and merchants."

PayPal has been eyeing the nascent market for mobile micropayments for some time. The company is understood to be keen to work with device manufacturers and wireless operators to provide PayPal as an integrated payments option for mobile content and gaming.

The imminent arrival of TextPayMe, a new PayPal-style person-to-person payment service that allows users to send and receive funds using SMS text messages, appears to have injected a new sense of urgency to this effort.