PayPal have today announced “PayPal Payments” for US customers which include the PayPal Here device for accepting credit and debit cards on a smart phone along with an integrated suite of products that makes it easy to accept payments via mobile devices and in-store as well as online. Sadly pretty much none of the new services are available in the UK where Website Payments Standard, Express Checkout, PayPal Invoicing and Virtual Terminal are the only options on offer.
PayPal Here
PayPal Here gives you a triangular card reader which enables you to swipe credit cards on your smart phone. It’s a fully encrypted thumb-sized card reader and you can also use a phone camera to scan and process cards and cheques. PayPal Here offers a simple flat rate of 2.7% for card swipes and PayPal payments. Merchants are also given a business debit card for quick access to their funds and 1% cash back on eligible purchases – which means if you use the debit card, your fees are effectively just 1.7%. (Normal rates start from 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).
PayPal Payments comes with three different subscription levels, Standard $0/month, Advanced $5/month and Pro $30/month. The main features are:
PayPal Payments Standard
- Accept credit cards (your buyers don’t need a PayPal account)
- Accept PayPal payments
Send invoices online for fast payment - Free card swiper – Accept card payments in person with PayPal’s new mobile plug-in card reader for your iPhone, iPad, or Android device
- Accept cheques – Just snap a picture of the cheque with your smartphone camera and transfer it into your account with your PayPal Mobile App
- Get paid on eBay and Etsy
- Get a PayPal Debit Card and earn up to 1% cash back
PayPal Payments Advanced
All of the above plus:
- Customers can pay without ever leaving your website rather than linking to PayPal
PayPal Payments Pro
Everything from PayPal Payments Standard and Advanced plus:
- Accept credit cards via phone, fax, and mail with a Virtual Terminal – simply log in to your PayPal account and process phone, fax, and mail orders online
- Design and host your own checkout pages for full control
I really like the new PayPal services, being able to swipe credit cards anywhere anytime with a mobile device or simply photograph a cheque to deposit it into my PayPal account is very attractive. Sadly none of these services are currently available in the UK and PayPal have yet to respond to Tamebay to let us know when they might be introduced this side of the Atlantic.
5 Responses
There is a page to register your interest for Paypal Here in the UK; https://www.paypal-business.co.uk/here/index.htm
That is a flawed line of reasoning I’ve been hearing from PayPal since at least 2003 when they were trying to convince me their rates were really only 0.7% when I got my 1.5% cash back debit card. The problem is that for this to be true it needs to be possible to use the card (you can’t use the card with anyone accepting PayPal) and it also requires that you have no alternative. 1% cash back is common and practically a given for any credit credit card out there (or at least in the US).
The credit card swipe unit would probably have to be Chip and Pin for use within the UK.
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The additional hardware and certification for this would substantially increase the cost to a level that the devices could not be given away free to potential customers. At my previous jobs chip and pin units tended to be very temperamental. They had to be paired to particular computers and software, if they broke/ were opened then they became unusable until they could be sent away for repair/replacement.
How would customers get a printed receipt when a transaction is made using a mobile phone? What does the person sign? I can see there being lots of disputed transactions where the amount is not what the person was expecting. If the merchant has no way of verifying the transaction then this would only be of use for small scale transactions (or ones where both the buyer and seller have an ongoing business relationship).
If this service is limited to sub £15 transactions (as it is when contactless payments are used) then it would be of limited use.
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If they are going to be issuing hardware I think it would be useful to have a version of the card swipe/ chip and pin unit for desktop/laptop computers. There will be a number of businesses who would like to make some credit/debit card transactions in person but not enough to make it worth getting a full terminal for use.
In the US the buyer signs for the goods using the app on the sellers smartphone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5woIGSOLGk
Adding Chip & Pin to the App for the UK sounds like it will be fun. 🙂