PayPal Takes Payments Offline With “PayPal Wallet”

Google isn’t the only unorthodox player moving into the offline payments space. PayPal, like the search giant and Visa, is planning to launch a “Wallet” product that aims to replace traditional credit cards at registers.

“If someone had told me ten years ago that PayPal would be doing offline payments, I would have laughed,” said Laura Chambers, PayPal senior director of customer experience, at a showcase for the new PayPal Wallet Wednesday. “[but] it’s no longer going to be about online or offline commerce, ecommerce, m-commerce. It’s just going to be about commerce.”

PayPal Wallet, which is set to start rolling out within the next 12 months, is like its competitors’ counterparts in many ways. It allows users to pay from multiple accounts, store and use gift cards, access special offers and store receipts. Its biggest distinction is that it is not attached to NFC, and therefore not restricted to use on NFC-enabled phones. Users can pay at PayPal-enabled terminals using a PayPal credit card, typing in a PayPal pin or eventually by using an NFC-enabled tap.

This gives PayPal a huge immediate advantage. In order to use PayPal Wallet, users don’t need to own NFC-enabled phones — which very few of them do. Meanwhile, partner merchants only need a software upgrade to their terminals in order to begin accepting PayPal, not the hardware upgrade they would need to accept mobile tap-and-go payments.


Mobile payments enabled by NFC, however, still have the advantage of allowing consumers to choose which payment method to use before tapping a payment terminal. When they’re swiping a PayPal card or entering a pin, they can’t easily switch between gift cards or multiple accounts in the same way the Google Wallet allows users to swipe through their cards before paying. Technically, PayPal customers could adjust their default settings using the PayPal Wallet mobile app before swiping the card, but that will most certainly make the service less convenient.

In order to make up for this drawback, PayPal made an interesting move: It allowed customers to change their method of payment after they make a purchase. A user could pay for something using a Mastercard, take it home, and then later log in to his or her PayPal account to switch the payment method to Visa instead without any additional fee. Paypal is also offering a payment plan for expensive items at select merchants to some of its users. The merchants get paid immediately, but if the customer choses, they can pay PayPal in several payments.

Lire la suite : http://mashable.com/2011/11/02/paypal-wallet/

Source : Mashable, by Sarah Kessler