VeriFone pals up with eBay in bid to lure US shoppers
VeriFone Systems Inc said shoppers will be able to use their PayPal accounts at cash registers in some brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season
New York: VeriFone Systems Inc, the largest maker of credit card terminals, said shoppers will be able to use their PayPal accounts at cash registers in some brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season.
EBay Inc, owner of the PayPal online-payments business, and VeriFone have signed a licensing and marketing deal to add the payment option at US retailers, Jennifer Miles, an executive vice-president at VeriFone, said. She didn't name the retailers.
The entry will advance eBay's efforts to enter the market for physical retail transactions, which dwarf online commerce. E-commerce accounted for seven per cent, or $200 billion (Dh735 billion), of total US retail sales last year, according to Forrester Research.
The two companies have collaborated on an application that can be used remotely to upgrade VeriFone cash registers already installed in stores. About 80 per cent of the top 200 US retailers use VeriFone card terminals, Miles said.
"We are making it very easy for merchants to implement this," Miles said.
"It opens up PayPal to offer account holders a variety of ways to pay."
The PayPal feature will initially be implemented on VeriFone's MX Solutions products, using either a PayPal card or a telephone number and pass code combination.
Equinox Payments LLC, a maker of payment terminals and software, will announce a similar agreement with PayPal, Anuj Nayar, a spokesman for PayPal, said.
PayPal and VeriFone competitor Ingenico agreed in January to incorporate PayPal into the French company's card-reading terminals. PayPal also announced a relationship with AJB Software Design Inc to develop software to ease processing of PayPal transactions.
