PayPal Takes its Mobile Payments Mobile with Uber
PayPal will be showing off its new mobile payment SDK to further extend its real-world reach through a partnership with cab hailing service Uber, allowing customers to pay fares via the online payments processor.
The move seems pretty straight forward for Uber. The app service, which allows users to see and hail nearby cabs via a live map on their smartphones, requires a credit card to make payments. This could be an issue for them as they attempt to go global, as not all countries are as credit card crazy as the US. Linking up with PayPal to provide a non-credit card mobile payment option will help expand their overseas potential customer base.
For PayPal, the deal seems to accomplish two things.
The competition in the online and mobile payments realm has come an awful long way in the past few years; PayPal’s deal with Uber will give the company more real-world exposure, keeping up with newer payment companies like Square Inc.
Getting their service into Uber will also give PayPal a chance to show the payments world that it can actually handle real-world payments. PayPal’s old APIs were notoriously difficulty to work with, and users looking to pay via PayPal would actually have to be redirected from whatever app they were trying to pay with and sign into PayPal’s website in order to complete the transaction. While this would only add a few seconds to the transaction, it is a huge deterrent in mobile payment adoption and, was undoubtedly holding PayPal back. With its new API, users can input their PayPal information straight into Uber’s app and pay just like they would with a credit card.
Any users looking to test drive the new payment method (or maybe just wanting to get somewhere in an Uber cab for cheap) can currently use PayPal and get $15 dollars off their next ride until the end of November.