PayPal’s Payment Code Enables QR-Based Mobile Payments
PayPal’s new Payment Code technology is a mobile payments service that enables consumers to pay for items using applications that produce quick response codes read by retailers’ existing scanners. PayPal’s Don Kingsborough says merchants who lack QR code-reading equipment can enter the four-digit code generated by Payment Code into a card-reading terminal, and the app will initially work with Discover Network merchant members “in a few million locations.” Payment Code will help entice customers into stores by notifying users when they are in close proximity to participating merchants with offers. Once they are inside the store, PayPal’s Beacon hardware will automatically spot users and make more personalized recommendations. For its virtual implementation, PayPal will offer the Payment Code service via its own app, while also giving merchants the ability to embed it within their own app through an an array of application programming interfaces. PayPal also will give users access to pay by their PayPal accounts, as well as with major credit cards, bank cards, and private-label charging cards from the merchants themselves. Kingsborough notes that PayPal’s share of Payment Code-facilitated transactions is being negotiated on an individual basis.
From “With Payment Code, PayPal Taps QR Codes and Existing Hardware for Large Retailer Mobile Payments”
TechCrunch (10/08/13) Lunden, Ingrid