Apple Pay … same old same old …

Will Apple Pay be any better than what is already out there?

From The Economist

“Emptying pockets - Even Apple may not manage to replace wallets with mobile phones"

Try buying things exclusively via mobile payments and you will surely die, either of starvation or of a caffeine overdose. Coffee shops aside, hardly any restaurants or retailers allow customers to pay by waving a smartphone. That will soon change: on October 16th, just after The Economist went to press, Apple was expected to announce that, within days, the latest iPhone’s mobile-payment feature, Apple Pay, will start working in America. It lets users tap their phones on merchants’ terminals to make wireless payments.

Such technology has been around for years. It has failed to take off, however, in large part because so many firms have fingers in the mobile-payment pie, and often block others from grabbing a big piece of it. Google Wallet, a mobile-payment service that started up in 2011 to great fanfare, for a long time worked on only one of America’s four big wireless networks, Sprint. The other three have their own rival project, now called Softcard (it was named ISIS until events in the Levant forced a change). A consortium of big American retailers, such as Walmart and Target, also offers a mobile-payment service, called CurrentC, as does PayPal, whose main business is online payments. And then there are dozens of startups, from Stripe to Square, each with its own take on mobile payments.”

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Bitcoin’s Price Skyrockets Following PayPal’s Hug

From Tech Crunch

“This morning, PayPal rolled out broader support for bitcoin, allowing merchants to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for digital goods. The reaction to bitcoin itself has been immediate and positive.

The PayPal integration is minor — users won’t be able to start stashing their bitcoin in their PayPal accounts, but merchants that use certain PayPal services, and are located in North America, will be able to accept bitcoin. PayPal is relying on several bitcoin payment providers to manage the transactions. The implication there is that PayPal, and its parent company eBay, will never hold bitcoin themselves.

The news had an immediate impact.”

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Apple Is Building A Mobile Payments Platform To Rival PayPal

From Seeking Alpha

“There is considerable anecdotal evidence that Apple is preparing to invade the mobile payments space. A quick perusal of the company's recent patent filings leads me to conclude that Apple's engineers are indeed converging on a large scale mobile payments solution to rival PayPal.”

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Could Apple’s Mobile Payments Disrupt PayPal?

From Motley Fool

“With a simple click of a button on a smartphone or tablet screen, a mobile payment is made. According to market research firm Forrester, the mobile payment industry was at $12.8 billion in 2012 but is predicted to rise to $90 billion by 2017—and that's one of the lower estimates. The technology is catching like wildfire for its ease, convenience, and speed. Since PayPal got the industry off the ground in 1998, new players have entered the market over the years.”

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PayPal Product Updates at This Year's “Big Show”

This week was all about the National Retail Federation event - a.k.a. the Big Show - where we announced several important product updates: a redesigned checkout experience for large merchants, a handy update on payment code, and the latest on PayPal Beacon availability.

PayPal pilots face verification for mobile payments in London

From Mobile Payments Today

“The phrase "put your money where your mouth is" may have a new meaning for London shoppers. Under a new pilot program, a dozen merchants in the borough of Richmond upon Thames, just west of London, have signed on to operate a payment system that lets customers make mobile purchases with their PayPal accounts by using their own faces as verification.

The facial-recognition and verification app is available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

The app will highlight nearby participating merchants on a shopper's mobile phone, and then let him or her check into a store by clicking on its name. Goods or services can be paid for by sliding an animated pin down the screen, after which the person's name and photograph show up on the store's payment system. The cashier then clicks on the customer's photo to send the payment through.”

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Who Killed The Cash Register?

Hot on the trail of the Cash Register killer, two detectives investigate, interrogate and negotiate with a key witness.

Tune in with PayPal this summer to find out: Who killed the cash register? And follow the investigation online using #CashRegisterRIP.

IBM on the customer-centric model

Mike Hobday, banking practice leader, IBM Global Business Services, UK and Ireland, talks to Finextra about the challenges banks face when creating a customer-centric business model. While banks “have been talking about this for a long time,” Hobday argues that now is the time when banks will truly shift their operational model en masse, especially as non-bank competitors like PayPal and Google continue to make additional inroads into financial services.

“Log In with PayPal” - Product Demo

PayPal has released a revision to its PayPal Access service called “Log In with PayPal:.

PayPal says that this revision provides a new “commerce identity system” that allows account holders to use a single PayPal identification not only to authorize their identity when logging into a website, but also to pay for purchases on e-commerce sites that accept PayPal as a payment method.

Log In provides user identification, as well as all necessary payment credentials, for making a purchase.

Watch the official product demo below.

What we are reading … 13th March 2013

Hackers hit Reserve Bank of Australia http://www.finextra.com/News/FullStory.aspx?newsitemid=24620

PayPal releases new mobile SDK; kicks off $100,000 global hackathon http://dld.bz/cpJ2s

Should Banks Charge Fees For Check Writing? http://bit.ly/ZmcsI8

Dutch retailers get cashless 'thank you' http://www.finextra.com/News/FullStory.aspx?newsitemid=24616

Bank of England and financiers 'set for showdown over balance sheets' http://dld.bz/cpJ2n

Britain Urged to Split Banks if New Rules Fail http://twb.io/13PsFeI

Find Out Your Financial Institution's Social Media Power Ranking http://bit.ly/ZvVqY3

Top Quotes from SWIFT Operations Forum Americas 2013 http://twb.io/15CFrvo

Stress Tests Don't Mean Banks Are OK http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-07/stress-tests-don-t-mean-banks-are-ok.html

PayPal at the Pump

Gas up with PayPal! The popular payments platform is now available at the gas station. Simply scan a QR code with your mobile device or enter a unique ID for the pump, and you’re ready to fill up and be on your way. PayPal is increasing its presence at point-of-sale, recently inking a deal with ATM maker NCR.

PayPal on the UK High Street – Four major retailers sign up

PayPal has signed deals with four major UK high street retailers that will see customers able to make in-store payments using their mobile phones. The service launches nationally on the 31st May 2012

PayPal customers in the UK will be able to use their smartphones to pay for their shopping at four major high street retail stores: Coast, Oasis, Warehouse, and Karen Millen.

Customers download the PayPal InStore app, link it to their PayPal account and set up a PIN for security. In store, the app generates a unique barcode and transaction number, which the shop cashier scans to take payment from the customer's PayPal account.

PayPal Here – A whole new payment experience

We have taken a bit of time to review the new PayPal Here offering launched recently. We are impressed!


In our view, what Apple did for the tablet and the smartphone, PayPal is doing for business payments. Even though this very comprehensive product is being touted as a small business solution we strongly suspect that the system will be enhanced and available to larger business as well. PayPal has shifted its focus to mobile as a way to bridge the gap between online and offline, notably getting retailer Home Depot to roll out its in-store payment system nationwide.


The following two-part video of the recent PayPal Here launch goes into detail of what the new service offers. Here David Marcus, PayPal's Vice President of Mobile, introduces the new payments solution that will help small businesses get paid - whether they do business online, offline or on mobile.


David Marcus has since been named as president, replacing Scott Thompson, who quit in January. David Marcus, who joined the eBay unit last year when it acquired his direct his direct carrier billing operator Zong.