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paypal-russia

Paypal Looking to Expand into Russia

Hot on the heels of announcements saying that Paypal was expanding into China and India comes the news that it is also eyeing Russia as part of impressive expansion plans for it’s More »

New Pay With Square Branding

Square Release New ‘Pay With Square’ Branding

Square has been hard at work with it’s mobile payment service.  Not content with updating a few aspects of it, it’s also gone and updated it’s branding too! What was once known More »

facebook-developers-paypal

Facebook and Paypal – Making Social Payments Happen

Paypal have announced a new app based off of the Facebook API that allows the use of the social media platform to make payments to friends via the World’s most popular social More »

eBay Name David Marcus the New President of Paypal

March 29, 2012   Click   No comments

As of April the 2nd, David Marcus will be the new President of Paypal, stepping up from the role of VP for Mobile.

David was previously with Zong, which was acquired by Paypal last year. He had been an entrepreneur with many start up technology companies, and it is that “start up energy” that Paypal hopes to tap into, having written on their blog

I’ve picked David Marcus as the new president of PayPal and I couldn’t be more thrilled. David’s just the right leader for PayPal. For more than 15 years, he’s been a successful technology entrepreneur with a passion for great products that both engage and delight customers.

He’s going to lead PayPal with that “founder’s perspective,” to bring start-up energy to PayPal’s unmatched global reach and digital payment capabilities. With David at the helm, we will have an even deeper commitment at PayPal, and across eBay Inc., to be a leading technology-driven and customer-focused product innovation company. We’ll continue to focus on accelerating product innovation, driving consumer engagement and creating a world where paying anytime, anywhere and any way is synonymous with PayPal.

David has certainly made a splash in the mobile payments market. Recently they created the first ever Paypal physical product, one that allows users to turn pretty much any smart phone into a payment processor, with cards being able to be swiped on the product.

Recently they doubled their predictions for mobile payments, from $3.5 Billion to $7 Billion, showing the remarkable growth in the mobile payments markets. Something eBay obviously considers is at least in part down to David Marcus.

We wish him all the best in his new role, and shall be watching his decisions with interest.

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Chad Elie Pleads ‘Guilty’ to Online Payment Processing Fraud

March 28, 2012   Click   No comments

Chad Elie, 32 of Las Vegas, has pleaded guilty to a charge of fraudulently using banks to process online gambling proceeds.

Elie was charged nearly a year ago, back in April 2011, along with 10 others by the prosecutors of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. The indictment targeted a large number of big name online poker sites, such as Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker.

The accusation was that these companies circumvented the 2006 Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act which forbade US banks from processing the payments of any offshore gambling site. It was alleged that Elie and other conspirators gave false information to the banks to ensure that they were able to use the banks to process the proceeds from their offshore gambling sites.

Guilty of Payment Processing Fraud

Chad Elie has plead guilty to this accusation, and could face up to 5 years in jail. That, however, is unlikely. Elie has forfeited the $500,000 he received as part of this fraud, and as part of his plea has agreed not to seek a sentence outside of the recommended 6 to 12 months jail term.

He has admitted acting as a payment processor for the sites, and to laying to the banks so that they would process the money under false pretences.

Sentencing is set for October 3rd, 2012, until which time Elie remains free on a $250,000 bond.

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Paypal Looking to Expand into Russia

March 28, 2012   Click   No comments
paypal-russia

Hot on the heels of announcements saying that Paypal was expanding into China and India comes the news that it is also eyeing Russia as part of impressive expansion plans for it’s payment processing.

The first major step into the Russian market has come by allegedly entering into an allegiance with the Russian Post, the country’s mail operator. Paypal will be running the backend of the Russian Posts’ prepaid cards.

Expanding in Russia

Moves were made last year to expand the offerings that Paypal could give to Russia. in 2011 it finally allowed Russian users to remove money from Paypal to their own accounts – prior to that it could only be removed to a US account.

The new pre-paid cards will likely be co-branded with the Russian Post, and will allow users to remove money from their Paypal accounts to their new cards, and access them via an ATM cash point, or use them to buy products in stores, in much the same way they would do with a traditional debit card from a bank account.

This will allow Paypal to become more integrated with people’s everyday lives, something that will do wonders for their brand image within a country they see as having enormous growth prospects. But to grow in Russia they need to arrest the slide, they suffered an 8% drop in active accounts in 2011.

There is certainly big changes afoot for Paypal in Russia, if this deal comes off then it could certainly help them improve brand awareness and integration, a big step for their expansion plans for the country.

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Square Release New ‘Pay With Square’ Branding

March 27, 2012   Click   No comments
New Pay With Square Branding

Square has been hard at work with it’s mobile payment service.  Not content with updating a few aspects of it, it’s also gone and updated it’s branding too!

What was once known as ‘The Card Case’, the mobile app used for making payments with Square, is now known simply as “Pay With Square”, presumably hoping that users will do what it says on the tin…

The branding certainly makes things clearer.  If you forget what you have downloaded to your phone (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t done that?), then the name ‘card case’ really doesn’t help you much.  But by seeing the ‘Pay With Square’ branding standing out bold as brass you are certainly going to remember what that app does!

The Tweaks

So that’s enough of the new paint job, what have they done under the hood?

  • It’s now easier to find Square approved merchants by using the app.  They’ve moved them from the old virtual wallet and put them in easy view of the users.
  • Users can now add businesses to their favourites list, and share those businesses with friends.

Other social networking tweaks have been added.  But are these enough to allow them to compete in the virtual wallet marketplace?  Google Wallet is making far more significant headway, and new, big players are waiting in the wings, looking to enter the game.

Square certainly have a battle on their hands, new paint job or not.

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Facebook and Paypal – Making Social Payments Happen

December 05, 2011   Click   No comments
facebook-developers-paypal

Paypal have announced a new app based off of the Facebook API that allows the use of the social media platform to make payments to friends via the World’s most popular social networking site.

This is seen as a facilitator of growth for Paypal.  Already roughly 80% of Paypal’s users interact on Facebook, so by combining the two they are able to put their services where their users are.

By allowing for social payments to Paypal members from within Facebook they also grow their potential user base.  People wanting to make payments to those without Paypal can easily get their friends to sign up.

Payments

The payments can happen in one of two ways – either the traditional Paypal to Paypal account or via electronic cards which are posted to a members wall (privately, so other friends are unable to see it happen).

“In a world that’s turning increasingly to social media, we are giving our customers the flexibility to send their money to whoever they want, whenever they want and for whatever ‘occasion’ they want,” wrote JB Coutinho, a senior product marketing manager at PayPal, in a blog post on Thursday.

The growth of the use of social media to be part of e-commerce has been startling – with major brands using it for brand awareness, to drive people to special deals and to interact with people on a brand to person basis.

Personal Payments

This can help the movement of money across people boundaries.  Where social payments can happen it can easily help interaction for Facebook as well as Paypal – with people able to organise trips, days out and more, and accept the payment for these, all in one place.

Given that sort of interaction is already a big part of what drives Facebook, this additional interaction, without ever having to leave the site, is going to increase it’s ability to act as a platform for organising such trips, and as such fuel growth.

This combination is sure to be a popular hit, and increase growth of both brands.

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Paypal Preferred to Credit Cards by Customers – KPMG

December 05, 2011   Click   No comments
paypal_logo

A KPMG survey of over 10,000 adults from 31 different countries suggests that Paypal is preferred to using a credit card for all online transactions.  This has shown how things are changing in online retail – and that consumers are looking to adpot new technology to protect their financial transactions.

In addition to this news came the results (in the same survey) that 74% of people preferred shopping online to doing so in person – an acknowledgement that the ease of shopping online, and the deals that can be found, has more than challenged the more traditional ‘brick and mortar’ style shops.

The type of shopping most likely to be done online include the likes of books, CDs, games, flights and vacations.  Grocery shopping has seen an increase in transactions but is still considerably behind the growth that other verticals have measured.

Paypal

In Europe and the Middle East Paypal has already outstripped credit cards as the preferred online transaction method – with the payment portal considered safer than using card transactions online.

Mobile devices have played a big part in this rise.  Mobile devices are used by 45% of the shoppers at shops to find their nearest store, with another 30% using their online technology to find coupons and other money off deals before they enter a store.

IMRG, the UK trades body, has estimated that 24% of people use their mobiles for shopping related decisions, whilst out on shopping trips.

This indicates that many shops who use their online store fronts to encourage ‘in person’ sales could well see an increase in turnover.  What is interesting is people are prepared to sign over personal information to allow themselves better deals.

49% of British shoppers indicate via the survey that they are prepared to sign over such information to ensure they get the best possible deals and prices from their shopping excursions.  This opens the door for in person sales to be used to create sales funnels for future sales via mobile and email contact.

This shift from basic credit card transactions to Paypal and other payment windows which can capture the personal details of shoppers means that the basic sales proposition for brick and mortar sales changes dramatically.

Online technology is fats encouraging on ‘real life’ space, shops are now required to change with it.

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