Tag: mobile payment partnership

The two companies have decided to work together to make it easier for consumers to use smartphones in-store.

PayPal Holdings Inc. has entered into a new mobile payment partnership with Citigroup Inc. The goal is to let customers easily use smartphones to pay for products and services at a checkout counter.

The agreement between the two companies will not impact PayPal’s main e-commerce business.

The PayPal online payments and peer-to-peer transactions will not be connected with the new mobile payment partnership. Instead, it will open up a new direction for the company to be able to participate in smartphone transactions. It offers the ability to carry out transactions with in-store purchases.

This new agreement has raised certain questions about PayPal’s growth strategy. Some have questioned whether or not it has the potential to bring this business to a size that would rise above the lost fees.

PayPal’s CEO assures critics that the mobile payment partnership has taken this into account.

PayPal is offering deals to credit card issuers in order to provide incentives for using their new in-store mobile payments, said CEO Daniel Schulman. The company’s head of global core payments, Jim Magats, said “We talked about giving customers flexibility to pay how they want, and now we are rolling out new experiences.”

Citigroup and Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) will begin allowing customers to lead their credit cards into PayPal accounts. This will make it possible for point-of-sale mobile swipe technology. As Citigroup currently boasts 143 million customer accounts, this presents a considerable opportunity.

The idea is to “enable banking in the palm of our customers’ hands,” said Ralph Andretta, Citigroup card exec.

PayPal is also working with two smaller banks as a part of this mobile payment partnership through FIS. They include Wintrust Financial Corp. and Avidia Bank. This agreement is only the latest in a growing race among banks and credit card issuers to take hold of the mobile wallet market that has yet to move into mainstream use in the United States. Other massive participants include J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as well as tech giants such as Google, Samsung and Apple.

The transaction system has already seen massive success through Starbucks and is moving to another coffee chain.

In 2012, Square mobile payments scored a tremendous deal in order to power the smartphone based credit card transactions at Starbucks, which was already known for its tremendous successes in this sphere.

Now, the company has announced that it is integrating with an additional coffee chain company.

Square will now be supplying the mobile payments at the point of sale at the boutique café chain, Blue Bottle Coffee. Its news release indicated that during the first wave, consumers at the Oakland, San Francisco Mint Plaza, and Brooklyn locations will be able to use the Square Wallet. However, over the next few months, the coffee chain intends to continue to roll out this option at its other locations.

Unlike Starbucks mobile payments, Blue Bottle will be using the Square Register as its complete POS system.

This will allow Blue Bottle to accept cash, credit card, and mobile payments, while it also tracks its store inventory, and is provided with reports on a daily basis so that it can monitor its progress. Consumers will be able to use the Square Wallet system to make a purchase by simply saying their names to authenticate the transaction.

According to the Blue Bottle Founder, James Freeman, in the news release, “We put a great deal of thought into every detail in each of our stores. We think about the right wood for our counters, the best beans, and how we can continue to serve our customers the perfect cup of coffee as we grow.” He also added that they felt that Square was the right mobile payments option for their business due to that company’s customer focus and “attention to detail.”

At the moment, there are 11 Blue Bottle locations in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area. It intends to continue its expansion and will bring its mobile payments along with it. It is one of several small chains that have joined with the Square Register, which is powered by iPad, over the last few months.