Apple Deal Puts PayPal One Step Closer to Ubiquity
One small step for consumer choice in e-commerce, one giant leap in PayPal’s quest for ubiquity, reports Paybefore sister company Finovate.
This week the company announced a partnership with Apple to enable shoppers to pay for their purchases at the App Store using PayPal. The feature will be available for users of a variety of Apple devices including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and iPod. PayPal also will be added as a payment option for a variety of Apple services including Apple Music, iTunes and iBooks.
The new partnership is a major coup for PayPal. The App Store previously limited payment options to debit and credit cards. Accepting PayPal also lowers the potential threat the company faced from Apple’s own payment technology, Apple Pay. This week’s deal follows a similar arrangement PayPal forged with Google that launched in April.
“PayPal’s availability across Apple’s services further expands our vision of providing customers a variety of ways to easily make mobile purchases,” PayPal Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bill Ready wrote on the company blog.
Consumers will be able to ask Apple’s Siri to make a payment via the PayPal app, he noted. The agreement between Apple and PayPal is also seen as a big win for consumer choice. MarketWatch quoted industry analyst James Cakmak who observed the trend toward giving consumers more payment options was strong among the major payment networks and card issuers.
Founded in 1998 and acquired by eBay in 2002, San Jose-based PayPal demonstrated its Instant Account Creation functionality at FinovateEurope 2012.
PayPal made headlines last month when it made an undisclosed investment in online lender and fellow Finovate alum, LendUp. Also in June, PayPal partnered with Flywire—also a Finovate alum—to facilitate international money transfers. The company began the year with a major acquisition, picking up TIO Networks for $230 million in February.
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