Card Forum: Discover/PayPal Rollout to Begin April 19 (April 9, 2013)
PayPal and Discover will begin the rollout of PayPal as a payment option at the point of sale, starting April 19, Don Kingsborough, PayPal’s global vice president and general manager of retail and prepaid, said yesterday. Speaking at Card Forum in Boca Raton, Fla., Kingsborough shared the stage with Discover’s Joe Hurley, senior vice president, global business development, to talk about their partnership and their vision for the future of payments.
“All of us are at the beginning of this revolution,” Kingsborough said. “Our relationship is ever-expanding,” he added, describing the companies as yin and yang counterparts. “We’re two companies that have a vision for the future that is very similar … and Discover will help us get there much faster than we could on our own.”
In addition to providing PayPal with ubiquity at Discover’s 7 million-plus U.S. merchant acceptance locations, Hurley said Discover brings great relationships with merchants and acquirers to the partnership. When asked what makes for a good payments partnership in today’s evolving industry, Hurley said, “Companies realize they need help … and are looking for complementary capabilities.”
It’s also about having a common vision, and “having the guts to go do it,” added Kingsborough, who said he envisions a world in which you don’t pull out a card or wait in line to pay. Although Kingsborough didn’t specify details about exactly what the rollout would entail in terms of how consumers would use PayPal at the POS, he said the company will begin by focusing adoption efforts on the most active PayPal customers and retail partners will later offer incentives to consumers to pay with PayPal. When the partnership was first announced in August, PayPal said it would issue payment cards to American users that could be swiped at any Discover-compatible payment terminal, and customers also would have the option of accessing their PayPal accounts by entering their mobile phone or PIN numbers.
The Discover alliance is in addition to PayPal’s other in-store initiatives, including deals it struck last year with Home Depot and more than a dozen other retailers. A company spokesman tells Paybefore that PayPal expects to have an offline payment presence in 2 million locations this year.
