There are a few things people are concerned about online shopping, be it their credit card information being at risk, the security of their mobile transaction, or not being able to get a refund if the item they purchased is unsatisfactory.
Others may not be able to use their local credit card on a website. This is why there are online international payment services like PayPal which makes it easy to send, receive and even request for money across borders.
Our long, slow slog towards ubiquitous mobile payments isn't getting any shorter, and today comments from Visa show that it's going to get more contentious before it gets better. Visa's CEO Charlie Scharf said that "it is totally appropriate" to charge companies like PayPal and Google a fee when their digital wallets get used. Both PayPal and Google offer something called a "staged wallet," which means that those companies act as a kind of intermediary between you and your credit card. That theoretically helps make your wallet easier to use — since it can contain multiple cards — but Visa and Mastercard really hate this approach because it means they can't collect as much data about your purchasing habits.
PayPal is updating its developer options today, launching a mobile SDK that will let app makers build in PayPal payment. Starting on iOS and expanding later to other platforms, users will be able to make purchases directly through apps, either by entering information through a PayPal form or by scanning a credit card through camera-based payment tool Card.io. In cases involving subscriptions or in-app goods, that could mean payments are subject to Apple's 30 percent fee; in other cases — like apps selling physical goods — they would likely be exempt.
Paypal’s mobile small business payment service, Paypal Here, is on its way to the Europe. It’ll be introduced in the UK first, with excursions into the continent coming at a later date.
Paypal Here launched last year in the US and several other countries, but they’ve had to overcome the gap between simpler magnetic strip system and the Chip and Pin system that is standard in the Eurozone. Magnetic strip are much easier to manage but are also considered less secure, according to Reuters.
eBay reported strong earnings today, thanks to growth in mobile adoption, as well as improved performance in the Marketplaces business. The company also released its mobile commerce numbers for the year, which blew past original estimates.
In 2013, eBay expects each to exceed a whopping $20 billion.
PayPal and eBay both expected $10 billion in sales/payments volume for the year, individually. However, eBay mobile finished the year with $13 billion in volume – more than double the prior year – and PayPal mobile handled almost $14 billion in payment volume, more than triple (250 percent exactly) the prior year.
The big news today from PayPal was a tiny credit-card reader called PayPal Here. It lets any small business owner with an iPhone or Android phone take credit card payments.
But there was actually a far more interesting technology shown today.
It lets you walk into a store and buy a product without touching your phone, money, or a credit card -- or even taking your wallet out.
Like the credit card reader, it's pretty obviously inspired by Square, whose Card Case app was introduced about six months ago. But I never actually got how revolutionary the concept of touchless retail payment was until I saw it in action today.
PayPal’s first retail tests of its in-store payment system is happening at Home Depot, the payment company acknowledged last week. But the bigger test will be ensuring that many more retailers and merchants are in a position to easily integrate PayPal’s system as it looks to roll out its offering this year.
At its X.commerce conference this week, eBay will likely unveil its PayPal Access platform, allowing sites to use PayPal as their login credentials. A deal with Facebook is also rumored.
It’s a rare occasion, but eBay has made the news. The online commerce site, one of the Web’s oldest and most stable, is holding its X.commerce conference in San Francisco Oct 12-14. The company is set to announce a new PayPal service called “PayPal Access” and possibly a partnership with Facebook at the conference, Reuters and Bloomberg report.
PayPal has been a powerhouse in online payments but it hasn’t really cracked the much bigger market for payments for goods in the real world. Now, the company is starting to show off how it can put all of its components and recent acquisitions together to form a broad tool for mobile payments.
PayPal is rolling out a new payments platform for online and local merchants that it says will give customers an improved shopping and buying experience.
The platform will include location-based offers, and will be accessible from any device (not just mobile phones), PayPal President Scott Thompson announced in a blog post today.
For the first time today, PayPal demonstrated how it intends to provide payments to physical retailers as the race heats up to make wallets and clunky metal registers obsolete.
A sneak peak was offered to merchants today by the eBay-owned company at a partner event in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and separately to me in a one-on-one briefings by executives.
