SAN JOSE, Calif. & RIVERWOODS, Ill. -- In a move that may step up the pace of mobile-payment acceptance, online payments giant PayPal announced it will team up with credit-card brand Discover, bringing PayPal to more than 7 million merchant locations across the United States and potentially to millions of international merchant locations in the future.
Starting in 2013, Discover will work with PayPal to enable participating merchants to accept PayPal through their existing relationship with Discover. To offer PayPal, merchants will not have to install or upgrade existing point-of-sale hardware or software, and consumers will know of this additional payments option through in-store signage.
A recognized brand in online payments, the San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal has jumped into the mobile-payments race in recent months, competing against Mountain View, Calif.-based Google and New York-based Isis (an entity formed by three large mobile-phone carriers).
“We’re delighted to enable PayPal’s efforts to provide their U.S. customers acceptance at millions of physical point-of-sale locations by leveraging our unique payment services assets,” said Diane Offereins, president of Discover Payment Services, Riverwoods, Ill. “This initiative will result in real change and innovation for the industry by bringing new technologies to the point-of-sale that benefit merchants and PayPal customers."
She said the partnership will help shape the emerging payments landscape by bringing together an established direct-banking and -payments company with a commerce enabler “to create an alternative payments option for consumers at the point-of-sale.”
“This relationship quickly extends PayPal’s reach to millions of merchant locations nationwide and … will create new benefits for Discover merchants without requiring new hardware or software,” said Don Kingsborough, vice president of retail for PayPal. “This relationship will deliver a truly seamless digital wallet, available most places consumers shop offline, which offers the speed, simplicity and security already enjoyed by 113 million active PayPal customers online.”
When a recent CSP Daily News poll asked readers: Are you eager to have a mobile payment option available in your store(s)? 53% of respondents answered “Yes,” a strong majority of them noting that they’d prefer a single system that works on all platforms.
PayPal is a payment-services provider that allows customers to pay for products online, via mobile devices and in stores.
Discover Financial Services is a direct-banking and payment-services company.
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