PayPal turns smartphones into checkout tills
Android and iOS swipe-and-go small biz boon
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PayPal has announced a card reader for Android and iOS phones, turning them into mobile payment systems.
Called PayPal Here, the triangular device plugs into the phone via a jack and allows merchants to swipe credit cards and accept PayPal payments.
The accompanying Here app also allows the phone's camera to scan and process cards and cheques. The reader is also encrypted.
PayPal Here will initially be offered on Apple iOS 4.0 iPhones and later versions, and will later become available on any Google Android device, PayPal said. The iPhone version of the app is currently in testing with what eBay’s payment arm called “a small set of merchants.”
PayPal’s vice president of mobile David Marcus said on the company’s blog here his company’s mobile payment system differs to theirs because it comes with the PayPal “trusted brand” in online payments.
In February, the UK’s Barclays Bank released Pingit, an application for Android, iOS and Blackberry that allows you to send and receive up to £300. ®
COMMENTS
Here is looking forward
to all those chargebacks you will receive if you use this device in the uk...
Good old magstripe. this device will make a nice paperweight in a year.
Question ..
So how do I, the customer, know that the thing reading my card and the app on the phone are genuine PayPal Here apps? It would be a doddle for a scammer to create identical stuff with all the PayPal styling. I might as well just hand them my card details and PIN and save them the bother.
Chip and pin
Judging from the paypal promo video, this looks like it just uses the magnetic strip and then users sign on the screen with their sausage sized finger.
No support for chip and pin and no paper signature to verify, I reckon the chargeback rate from this one will be horrendous.
Without chip and pin i just can't see this being widely adopted, which is a shame, cos anything that reduces transaction and terminal costs for small merchants is sorely needed.
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