PayPal Will be An Offline Payment Option in 2013

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Why has this taken so long?

In an announcement that could be filed under the category common sense, credit card provider Discover said that it will be offering its merchants the ability to accept PayPal payments via in-store signage. Participating locations, which could total up to seven million in the U.S., do not need to upgrade their point-of-sales hardware and software. Ebay-owned PayPal says it has about 113 million users worldwide and more than 50 million in the U.S. alone.

Since there is apparently no cost involved for merchants to accept PayPal, it is a low-risk move for Discover to extend its financial infrastructure. The success of PayPal online and its ubiquity to make online payments as well as international transaction with often lower fees than the fees typically charged by financial institutions could make this an appealing solution in specific user scenarios. However, it is unlikely that it will challenge the dominance of traditional credit card payments.

For Discover, this is a major coup that has landed the company in the spotlight. And what could be wrong with that, even if the PayPal credit card extension does not succeed?

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Wolfgang Gruener
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • master_chen
    Wake me up when it goes worldwide.
    Reply
  • schnitter
    "PayPal (Confirmed Address only)" stickers on every business door!
    Reply
  • gm0n3y
    Two comments here:

    1) Do people actually use Discover? I don't know a single person that uses them.
    2) Paypal is evil and will never get any business from me.
    Reply
  • punahou1
    Is there a typo in this article? I am a "merchant" and Paypal takes approximately 2.9% from my revenue each time a customer submits a payment to me through Paypal...
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    Queue international money laundering in 3...2...

    Paypal sucks, but so does the sears card I mean discover card.
    Reply
  • spookyman
    I hate Paypal.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    Paypal is an awful company. Paypal should be neither an offline nor online payment option ever.

    If they become an "offline" payment option, will they THEN be subject to the appropriate rules and auditing that any other financial institution should be? Oh, I don't know, like NOT being able to lock up someone's funds indefinitely for arbitrary reasons?

    Anyone using Paypal is sitting on a ticking time-bomb of account-lockout.
    Reply
  • beardguy
    Paypal sucks. Nothing but problems with this terrible service every time use it, which thankfully is rare.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    punahou1Is there a typo in this article? I am a "merchant" and Paypal takes approximately 2.9% from my revenue each time a customer submits a payment to me through Paypal...No--at least, I don't think so. I think what it's saying is that for these B&M merchants that currently accept Discover Card payments, there would be no additional fee for them to also support Paypal transactions as well. I assume this to mean that whatever the per-transaction fee that is assessed for DC payments, the same would be true for paypal payments.
    Reply
  • freggo
    I have a Paypal account just for the rare cases where a client insists. Don't even advertise it.
    They 'support' is non existing and if you get ripped of by a customer Paypal will do absolutely NADA to look into the situation.

    So guess what, Paypal acceptance for my business ranks right up there with the Discover card. They are a perfect match :-)
    Reply