WebProNews

Tag: mobile payments

  • PayPal Launches New Android App with Bump Technology

    PayPal has announced the launch of version 2 of its Android app. This feature "bump" technology, which lets two users bump their phones together to send money (much like the existing iPhone app).

    "Split the check is another great feature, which lets you automatically calculate the total cost of a bill and then collect money directly from friends when out to dinner," says PayPal Mobile Senior Director Laura Chambers. "We hope these new features make it even easier to get paid back on the spot the next time you’re stuck picking up the tab."

    "According to a recent Nielsen Company report, by the end of next year, more people will own smartphones than PayPal Android App with Bumpany other phone in the U.S., and that’s sure to drive people to use their phones to pay," adds Chambers. "We’ve definitely seen this growth ourselves. While we’ve had PayPal mobile applications since 2005, in the last few years we’ve seen usage soar. Over the last six months alone, PayPal generated nearly twice the mobile payment volume it did in all of 2009, and we expect to close out the year with over a half a billion dollars of mobile payment volume."

    Android use itself is growing dramatically. A report from NPD Group found that one in three smartphones shipped in the U.S. are running Android.

    The new PayPal app is free, and can be found in the Android Market.

  • Major Mobile Carriers Teaming Up to Eliminate Credit Cards?

    Will the mobile phone replace the credit card? It sounds a bit like science fiction, but it appears that mobile carriers are trying to make it a reality.

    Bloomberg reports that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile USA are "planning a venture to displace credit and debit cards with smartphones". The companies would work with Discover Financial Services and Barclays Plc to test a system starting in Atlanta and three other unnamed U.S. cities.

    "The trial would be the carriers’ biggest effort to spur mobile payments in the U.S. and supplant more than 1 billion plastic cards in American wallets," say Peter Eichenbaum and Margaret Collins in Bloomberg’s collaborative report. "Smartphones have encroached on tasks ranging from Web browsing to street navigation and now may help the phone companies compete with San Francisco-based Visa and MasterCard, the world’s biggest payments networks."

    Will Mobile Carriers Eliminate the Need for Credit Cards?Even if the mobile carriers are successful in their venture, it will be a long time before the credit card is truly replaced. Smartphone usage is growing, but these devices are a long way off from being in everybody’s hands.

    Meanwhile, it’s not as if the credit card companies are standing still in a stagnant pool of their old world ways. Visa and Master Card have both made moves recently that indicate they are going after PayPal, which is currently a big player in the mobile payments space.

    MasterCard announced a developer initiative place MasterCard payment technology in mobile and online apps, while Visa launched its own PayPal competitor starting in Australia.

    Om Malik at GigaOm has a good article on the mobile payments industry. He points out that a venture from the mobile carriers may hurt mobile payments startups. 

    Would you like to replace your credit cards with your mobile phone? Share your thoughts.

  • Is MasterCard Declaring War on PayPal?

    Is MasterCard Declaring War on PayPal?

    This week MasterCard announced a new developer initiative, which will place MasterCard payment technology in mobile and online apps.

    "We are excited about tapping into the ingenuity of software developers around the globe to help create the next generation of game-changing payment applications," said Josh Peirez, Chief Innovation Officer, MasterCard Worldwide. "We feel this will unleash innovation within our industry especially in the burgeoning areas of e-commerce and mobile payments."

    PayPal was quick to remind people that that it specializes in this concept, saying Mastercard is "following in its footsteps."

    "We’ve been working with developers for more than a year to deliver PayPal X, the first open global payments platform with functionalities specifically based on developer needs," says Damon Hougland, senior director of PayPal X, the company’s open platform.  "Since we opened up PayPal X, thousands of developers have signed up, hundreds of apps have been built, and millions of dollars have transacted over our platform."

    PayPal X

    "We’re already helping developers make money and monetize their visions," he continues. "Split Payments, for example, allows developers to automatically add their service fee to any PayPal transaction. Developers using PayPal X are already changing the way consumers think about money – for example, we worked with the folks at Bump, a technology to swap information between smartphones by tapping them together, to incorporate this functionality into the PayPal Mobile for iPhone app. Now people can just ‘bump’ iPhones to transfer money. In the first three weeks alone, the application was downloaded more than one million times."

    PayPal says next month it will offer developers the ability to collect credit card payments from within their PayPal X-based applications. This means they wouldn’t have to deal with complications commonly associated with credit card acceptance. The company says to expect "a lot more innovation" in the run up to its developer conference in October.

    MasterCard says its Open APIs will be available around the world later this year. Depending on whether or not development on top of the APIs gets heavily under way before October, PayPal’s conference should be all the more interesting, adding to an already increasingly fascinating year of application payment options.

    Last week at Google I/O, PayPal announced the availability of its Mobile Payments Library for Android, as well as the launch of its PayPal X Toolkit for Google App Engine. These should both increase reach significantly.

  • PayPal Gives iPhone/iPad Developers In-App Payment Option

    Some news from PayPal that slipped fairly under the radar this week is that the company opened its Mobile Payments Library to developers. A representative for PayPal tells WebProNews it will give developers an "easy way to get payments from within their apps."

    PayPal Mobile Payments at BaubletThe library is an element of PayPal’s PayPal X Payments Platform, announced last year. "The Mobile Payments Library enables app developers to accept in-app purchases directly via PayPal; so developers don’t need to store customers’ personal financial information and customers can purchase goods and services without leaving the app," the rep explains.

    A few developers have already started using the library. Examples include ShopSavvy, and Shutterfly’s Wink. Baublet is the first one in the app store to utilize it.

    "Being a first time developer, PayPal’s quick and responsive help has been fantastic and made this task pretty darn easy," says Baublet developer Michael Robinson. "Our goal was to have the ability to create, purchase and mail a charm within a few minutes on our app. The PayPal’s Mobile Payments was critical to that success."

    The library currently supports iPhone and iPad apps, but will become available for other platforms soon.