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Tag: paypal

  • PayPal Partners with Malaysia’s Largest Mobile Provider

    PayPal Partners with Malaysia’s Largest Mobile Provider

    PayPal announced today that it has entered a strategic partnership with Maxis Berhad, the largest mobile operator in Malaysia. The two companies will offer online and mobile payment solutions to Maxis customers, of which there are over 12 million.

    PayPal and Maxis partnerPayPal points out that this is the first time a mobile operator and a global online payments provider have teamed up on such an effort.

    "Today, customers leave their house with three critical things: their mobile phone, wallet and keys," says PayPal’s Farhad Irani. "The Maxis-PayPal Account will let them access their wallet through their phone. With this new service, they’ll be able to live a cashless and card-free life, with their wallet safely protected, enjoying the flexibility, accessibility and security offered by PayPal’s services through the convenience of the Maxis payments channels.

    Customers of the mobile operator will be able to shop online on their mobile devices, and soon on TVs using a Maxis PayPal log-in.

    "Once Maxis’ customers sign up for an account, we hope that they will start to enjoy the other benefits that PayPal provides, from fast, convenient check out to additional buyer protections if an item doesn’t arrive," says Irani. "This partnership is a further milestone in PayPal’s short but dynamic history in Asia Pacific and will hopefully serve as a further boost to e-commerce and online payments for mobile in Malaysia leading to new levels of convenience and benefits to customers."

    Last week, RCDb announced that it will be bringing PayPal to cable television services, Blu-ray players , and other connected TV devices.

  • PayPal and Other Web Technologies Coming to Cable

    RCDb, which credits itself as the company that used Blu-ray to bring Netflix service to the PS3, made a number of announcements today involving Cable and web technologies.

    "Today, at The Cable Show, the company announced several integrations that could significantly change consumer interaction with TV / cable," a representative tells WebProNews. "Integrations are with PayPal, Panasonic, Gracenote, Jinni, Strategy&Technology and Alticast – and the announcements contain a variety of services/monetization methods, including the ability for consumers to see movie data (e.g. actor names, songs playing, scene location) while they’re watching it, buy soundtracks from an OnDemand movie, or navigate Google Maps using just the TV remote."

    RCDb"The innovation RCDb brought to Blu-ray was so successful that they are now using that service model for cable, and stand to impact the bottom line — helping operators/content providers generate greater revenue from these services. (Previous models of widgets offered via TV haven’t proven very profitable)."

    The PayPal integration is aimed at enabling quick, easy, and consumer friendly, PayPal powered transactions on cable television services, Blu-ray players, and other connected TV devices. PayPal will have pre-integrated e-commerce capabilities for cable operators that deploy the RCDb web services platform on their networks. RCDb says this opens up opportunities for cable operators to better monetize TV and movie content through the integration of established web services.

    "Imagine: a music soundtrack purchase cued by the related on-demand movie," the rep says.

    The other partnerships are aimed at bringing familiar web experiences (like Google Maps), rich movie data, new revenue streams to cable, as well as personalization features and deep interactive web services. More about each individual partnership can be found here.

  • PayPal: Demand for Electronic P2P Payments Growing Rapidly

    A study released this week sponsored by FIS, PayPal and NACHA, found that demand for electronic P2P payments and transfers is growing rapidly, and that the interest of making these and other payment transactions through an ePayment Portal is also strong.

    According to the study, of those who were interested in the Portal concept, 70% would be likely to use P2P payment services within that Portal.

    Dan Schatt of PayPal on P2P payment demand "Results showed that almost 50 percent of consumers surveyed expressed interest in replacing cash and checks using electronic P2P for common needs," says Dan Schatt, GM of PayPal’s Financial Innovations team. "For example, sending money to a child at college, sending money out of the country or splitting the cost of a gift with family members, co-workers or friends."

    "Research indicates that banks will benefit most by promoting P2P payments to online banking and bill payment customers, as well as users of mobile banking services and payments," he adds. "There is significant opportunity to drive adoption by increasing consumer awareness of the simplicity of initiating electronic P2P payments. As a proof point, 34 percent who expressed interest in the Portal concept indicated they would be willing to switch to a bank that offers electronic P2P payments as part of an ePayment Portal."

    In other PayPal news, this week the company announced that it opened its Mobile Payments Library for app developers to give them an easy way to get payments from within their apps.

  • 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.

  • PayPal Lands Alibaba Deal

    PayPal Lands Alibaba Deal

    Earlier this week, Alibaba.com launched a new business-to-business platform, and now, it looks like eBay and PayPal will get a boost from it, too.  It’s been decided that AliExpress will offer PayPal as a payment option.

    This may turn out to be a significant moment for both sides.  Alibaba is a successful ecommerce platform based in Asia, with about 47 million registered users, but of course AliExpress is brand new.  And PayPal is a big moneymaker for eBay, with roughly 84 million active accounts in existence, but Asia isn’t its home market.

    Together, then, it’s possible that they’ll achieve quite a lot.

    David Wei, the CEO of Alibaba, even said in a statement, "Our work with companies such as PayPal is crucial, because we want to make sure we are meeting the needs of our customers by making payment as fast, safe and easy as possible."

    PayPal’s also happy about the move – and looking forward to future developments – as Farhad Irani, Vice President of PayPal Asia Pacific, wrote in a blog post, "We’re very excited to have this fantastic new merchant join the PayPal franchise and I look forward to letting you know about other news out of Asia as it happens."

  • PayPal iPhone App Hits One Million Downloads

    eBay’s PayPal said today its PayPal Mobile iPhone app has been downloaded one million times in less than three weeks.

    PayPal-iPhone-App With the new PayPal Mobile iPhone app, users can split restaurant checks, collect money for events, set reminders for recurring payments, donate to causes and manage their PayPal accounts.

    For International transactions, PayPal Mobile is available in fifteen languages and features a global currency calculator. The app first launched in Apple’s App Store on March 15.

    "With PayPal Mobile on the iPhone, trips to the ATM are a thing of the past," said Osama Bedier, PayPal’s vice president of platform and emerging technology.

    "One million downloads shows just how ready people are to live a cashless and card-free culture with their wallet living safely in the cloud."

     

  • PayPal Talks This Year’s Twestival Efforts

    Update: PayPal says this year, Twestival raised over $450,000 for Concern Worldwide.

    Original Article: If you’re an active part of the Twitter community, you’re probably well aware that the Twestival event is underway today. In some parts of the world it’s already over, but in others it’s just beginning. WebProNews talked to Judy Chang of PayPal’s non-profit team about the event, and the company’s role in it.

    If you’re unfamiliar with Twestival, this is its second year, and it is a global initiative to raise money for a cause that is selected by the community – last year it was about getting clean water to people that didn’t have it, and this year it’s about education around the world – the organization to benefit is Concern Worldwide.

    The event takes place online as well as off. People arrange parties and events in cities all over the world and see who can raise the most money. "The cities are somewhat competing," says Chang.

    Twestival - People can donate money through paypal

    She says that because of Twestival’s grassroots nature, the cities find their own sponsors for events. Some of them may feature celebrities (a lot of celebs are auctioning off memorabilia on eBay to support Twestival). Some of the events are streamed live through UStream.

    The events are the offline part though. PayPal comes in more on the online part. The comany offers a widget that any of its account holders worldwide can use to raise donations for the cause. That includes 190 countries and 24 currencies. That opens up room for a lot of potential donors.

    As far as the events themselves, the Twestival site will show you where they’re all being held. You can search for specific cities and see the details for the event on each one (like who’s attending and how much money that city has raised).

    Last year, Chang says Twestival raised $250,000 and got clean water to 17,000 people. Soon, we’ll find out how much the event is able to raise this year.

  • Which Payment Platform Will Dominate Mobile?

    A recent study found that consumers are getting more comfortable with mobile shopping, and you best believe that will only continue, as people continue to spend more of their web time on their phones. So as everybody reaches for their mobile devices to make payments, which platforms are they going to use?

    PayPal hopes to stay in the drivers seat in this area. WebProNews interviewed Francesco Rovetta, director of business development for PayPal Mobile at SXSW a couple weeks ago, who talked a bit about PayPal’s vision for mobile.

    PayPal is certainly not the only player in this space though.

    O’Reilly Media Founder Tim O’Reilly has posted a fascinating piece on the "State of the Internet Operating System," which explores in depth, just what the phrase operating system means in the age of the cloud, and the mobile web. While he talks about this with regards to search, media access, communications, identity, advertising, location, and a slew of other categories, one section of this lengthy article talks specifically about payments.

    "Payment is another key subsystem of the Internet Operating System," he says. "Companies like Apple that have 150 million credit cards on file and a huge population of users accustomed to using their phones to buy songs, videos, applications, and now ebooks, are going to be in a prime position to turn today’s phone into tomorrow’s wallet. (And as anyone who reaches into a wallet not for payment but for ID knows, payment systems are also powerful, authenticated identity stores – a fact that won’t always be lost on payment providers looking for their lock on a piece of the Internet future.)"

    "PayPal obviously plays an important role as an internet payment subsystem that’s already in wide use by developers," he continues. "It operates in 190 countries, in 19 different currencies (not counting in-game micro-currencies) and it has over 185 million accounts. What’s fascinating is the rich developer ecosystem they’ve built around payment – their recent developer conference had over 2000 attendees. Their challenge is to make the transition from the web to mobile."

    UPDATE: PayPal contacted me, pointing out errors in O’Reilly’s numbers. "We now have 81 mil active registered accounts and 210 million accounts, in 190 markets and we support 24 currencies."

    O’Reilly also mentions Google and Amazon as key players in the mobile payments space, with the Android Market giving Google Checkout a boost, and Amazon having only recently opened theirs up a bit to developers.

    Then you have Facebook, who last year started letting users buy physical goods with virtual currency. As business sell more products through Facebook, which is happening more and more, Facebook may play an increasingly bigger role in mobile payments. Mobile Facebook users are usually signed into their accounts all the time.

    Which of these payment services do you see yourself using most a year or two from now? Something else? Share your thoughts.

  • PayPal To Add 1,000 New Jobs In Asia Pacific Region

    Ebay’s online payment service PayPal said today it would double the number of employees in Asia Pacific from 1,000 currently to more than 2,000 by the end of the year.

    PayPal said it plans to add more than 100 new jobs at its international headquarters in Singapore. New jobs will be located at all seven offices including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. For its Singapore business headquarters, PayPal will be seeking Singapore-based people with background in technology, product development, infrastructure design, risk and engineering.

    Farhad-Irani-PayPal "While PayPal’s growth in Asia Pacific to date has largely been driven by our cross border business, we fully expect the domestic business in many of our Asian markets to explode in the coming years," said Farhad Irani, vice president of PayPal Asia Pacific.

    "Our success in the region will continue to rely on partnering with merchants, financial services companies and local governments to deliver the right services for our customers."

    PayPal says it processed more than $6 billion of total payment volume in Asia Pacific in 2009, an increase of 38 percent from 2008.

    As part of its plans to grow across Asia Pacific, the company also announced the PayPal mobile payment software development kit (SDK) will be available to developers in the region.
     

  • Dynamo Player – Instant Monetization Tool for Videos Unveiled at SXSW

    Rob Millis and Will Cohlan, the pair beyond the web show Political Lunch, gave a presentation at SXSW called "Beyond Advertising: Can Online Video Finally Pay?" The discussion led to the unveiling of a tool for online video monetization called Dynamo Player.

    The goal (short-term at least) of the tool is to simplify the process of uploading a video to the web, making it portable, and quickly getting viewers to pay for it.

    WebProNews pulled Millis and Cohlan aside after the presentation to discuss Dynamo Player a little bit more:

    Dynamo’s slogan is "Powering independence." This concept comes from the idea that the product lets content producers have more control than with other options. Users can set their price, upload the video, and publish it anywhere on the web, and start making money immediately. Each time a viewer pays to watch your video, the money is deposited directly into your account.

    For payments, the Dynamo player uses PayPal. Viewers are asked to pay, when they press play, right from the player. Of course, you’ll have to provide content that people actually want to pay for, and Millis and Cohlan made a fair case as to why paid online video content will likely become more accepted by users (with sites like iTunes already paving the way).

    Dynamo is not about competing with a site like YouTube, as far as offering a destination for users to go and watch online video (at least at this point), although they did say a future option could be to present featured videos on their site. Dynamo is geared more at the producers themselves, to put their videos wherever they choose.

    Content producers who want to give it a spin can send an email to the guys at [email protected], and let them know.

     

  • eBay-PayPal Tie-Up Draws Complaints In Germany

    This has not been a great week for American tech companies trying to do business in Europe.  First, Google got in trouble over allegedly anticompetitive search practices and its policy on Street View data retention.  Now, German antitrust authorities are looking at the way in which eBay has supported PayPal.

    eBay

    John Oates explained earlier today, "eBay.de recently asked sellers with low feedback points to offer PayPal.  The company justified the move because it said the number of bad buying experiences is twice as high from sellers with less than 50 feedback points than the average."

    But some people are less than pleased with the change, and as a result, "[T]he German Federal Cartel Office is investigating complaints made against eBay over this tying policy."

    Since the promotion of PayPal should increase its market share and help eBay earn more money, they may have a point.  eBay’s liable to have trouble arguing that there’s no other way it could protect buyers, at least.

    As always, we’ll see what happens.  German authorities haven’t yet launched a full investigation or given an indication which way they’re leaning.  eBay, for its part, is still more in "dialogue" than "sound the alarm" mode.

  • Buy Facebook Credits And Ads Using PayPal

    Facebook said today it will allow advertisers to pay for ads on its network using PayPal.

    The two companies have entered into a strategic relationship that will allow advertisers worldwide to use PayPal to pay for Facebook Ads through the company’s online advertising tool.

    The option to use PayPal makes it easier for advertisers, particularly small international companies, to run campaigns on Facebook. Facebook reaches 400 million people globally, with 70 percent of those living outside the United States.

    Osama-Bedier "Put simply, PayPal’s business is payments. We make it easier for customers to send and receive money online in 24 currencies and 190 markets around the world," said Osama Bedier, PayPal’s vice president of platform and emerging technology.

    "We’ve always been an important part of the developer ecosystem on Facebook, and we’re excited to expand our relationship directly with Facebook to help grow advertisers’ and developers’ businesses."

    PayPal will also become a payment option for Facebook Credits, which is currently being tested in a handful of games and applications. Facebook says the goal is to give users a fast and easy way to buy virtual goods on the site.

    In December PayPal launched a "send money" application on Facebook that allowed users to send money to anyone with an email address.
     

  • Google, PayPal, Mozilla Help StopBadware Go Solo

    Thanks to Google, PayPal, and Mozilla, the anti-malware organization borne out of Harvard’s Berkman center has become an independent entity.  StopBadware.org is now a non-profit known simply as StopBadware.

    This change should be viewed as more evolutionary than revolutionary; like before, StopBadware will work to minimize the threat of malware, and at the moment, nothing more significant than some colors, logos, and site content has been changed.

    Urs Gasser, executive director of the Berkman Center, also explained in a statement that StopBadware is just following a path taken by previous Berkman Center ventures like Creative Commons and Global Voices.

    And as mentioned earlier, it’s doing so with the support of a lot of important companies.  Google, PayPal, and Mozilla all provided funding for StopBadware’s launch, and one person from each group will now sit on its board of directors.  Notably, "father of the Internet" Vint Cerf is Google’s representative.

    Anyway, a hat tip goes to Elinor Mills, and we’ll see what happens.  In a blog post, Maxim Weinstein, StopBadware’s executive director, did encourage onlookers to "watch for more changes, both aesthetic and substantive, as we embark on this new adventure."

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