Rating: Not trying to merely replace the card swipe with an NFC tap
Following the launch of the PayPal Carrier Payment Network, the company has taken a swipe at NFC technology. PayPal’s head of mobile, David Marcus, told the Guardian here, “For NFC to succeed you need consumers to have the handsets, and merchants to install the terminals. It will take time for NFC to get mass adoption. By the time NFC catches up, we’ll be in a world that will move away from the point-of-sales terminal.” Instead of focussing on NFC – which has proved very popular at MWC 2012 – Paypal is highlighting its alliances with merchants which it says will enable them to grab a slice of the digital goods industry, which should be worth $220 billion by 2014 [source: Juniper Research]. Paypal pointed at alliances with Entradas.com, Pizza Express and Yotel.“We are very technology agnostic and we are not dependent on NFC. If NFC doesn’t happen we will still succeed,” Marcus commented. “We are not trying to replace a swipe by a tap.”
For PayPal, $4 billion of the $118 billion it processed in payments in 2011 were mobile. The mobile total is expected to rise to $7 billion in 2012 and is up from $150 million in 2009.
Paypal says that only weeks after integrating PayPal into its app, Entradas.com has seen over 15 per cent of customers purchase tickets using PayPal.
A leading ticketing company in Spain, Entradas.com enables consumers to beat the queues by purchasing tickets with a mobile phone.
By visiting the Yotel website and following the instructions, mobile phone users can book a hotel room in under 60 seconds, PayPal claims. There’s no need to even download an app.
In the UK, the Pizza Express restaurant chain has a PayPal app which sends the bill to a customer’s phone and enables them to pay without using a till or a credit card.
PayPal says it has 106 million active customers and supports payments in 25 currencies.
It is trying to leverage this with its 250 plus carriers and 1,500 plus digital goods merchants.
The company is hoping to increase the flexibility of carrier payments as a payment method, and increase payout rates for merchants with its PayPal Carrier Payment Network.
“We are not sitting in the middle with only parts of the solution,” Marcus commented. “That is why we are truly in a unique position.”
NFC will need Apple and iPhone regardless of what the industry says. Makes much more sense for Africa and APAC currently as they don’t have an established credit card base, but not saying won’t work in more developed nations. Too confusing to consumers currently, not enough handsets enabled. Still trying to figure out why we are pushing a hardware solution where a software solution already working and reliable. Maintain belief NFC will be utilized 95% of the time for functions outside of payment…
Giff Gfroerer
i2SMS
Ah, another load of PR nonsense from the eBay Dept of Spin …
I’m at a lose to understand why Visa and/or MasterCard don’t form an alliance with that most creative of all payments processors, eBay’s PayPal, who “is driving mobile commerce innovation, partnering with carriers and merchants to build a new retail ecosystem that drives growth by delivering anytime, anywhere value and rich multichannel shopping experiences for consumers.” Or at least so says eBay’s delusional chief headless turkey, “Not For Commerce” John Donahoe …
“When Do We Start Calling eBay A Payments Company?”
A tale of two clunky, unprofessional commercial entities: eBay and PayPal
http://bit.ly/wpl5DT
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking