If you often get frustrated because you forgot your wallet, today’s news is great for you. PayPal decided to buy mobile payments startup card.io. The new purchase will give PayPal a better grip in the mobile payment market.
The new partnership that PayPal made will help create a better and friendlier costumer-merchant relationship. This will be made possible with the new Android or iOS applications that will assure the consumer will enjoy plastic-free shopping sessions without constantly checking for the wallet.
Hill Ferguson, CEO at PayPal, said they were literally blown away by the creativity and potential of the people at card.io. The card.io staff will be making their move to PayPal’s office in San Jose in order to start the companies’ new enterprise.
With the card.io electronic wallet, there won’t be need for any card-swiping device, only a smartphone with the PayPal app included. All it takes then is a simple scan of the credit card, which is just as easy as taking a simple picture. According to PayPal, each scan will be worth 15 cents and it will accept all major credit cards.
Even if the old users are keeping the same tech, Ferguson said that “We can’t wait to get them involved in helping us change the future of shopping and payments”.
Although PayPal seems to be heading into another, more user accessible area, the current technology as well as card.io’s will remain available for developers for use in their own applications. For the moment being, PayPal is determined to make a name for itself in mobile payments. Before the card.io deal, PayPal bought Square Card-Reader, another digital wallet invention designed for merchants and shoppers on the run.
Starting with May this year, PayPal announced more than a dozen new retail partners including Office Depot, Barnes & Noble, Jamba Juice, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Aeropostale, Nine West, and JC Penney. And the card.io deal brings along startup’s quite important partners, like Uber, LevelUp, TaskRabbit, 1-800 Contacts and Lemon.
During the past few years, PayPal has been one of the most popular payment methods across the world and especially in the United States. For the most part, PayPal seems to be living to its promise to always come up with new developments in order to make the shopping experience friendlier for every user.
