PayPal unveils expanded mobile commerce platform

PayPal took the wraps off a series of new payment technologies the eBay-owned commerce platform's president Scott Thompson calls "a one-stop shop for merchants to engage their customers directly during every part of the shopping lifecycle."

Click here to watch a video about PayPal's new services.

PayPal is currently previewing the new services to merchant partners--writing on the PayPal Blog, Thompson did not delve into technological specifics, but stated the company plans to make digital commerce solutions available across all devices, not just mobile phones, and offer funding options including cash, credit and installments. In addition to mobile and point-of-sale payments, PayPal will roll out geo-targeted mobile advertising campaigns, barcode scanning tools, real-time inventory data and a virtual wallet concept.

"Let's be clear about something--we're not just shoving a credit card on a phone," Thompson writes, adding PayPal will announce additional details over the coming months.

This summer, PayPal stated its 2011 mobile total payments volume will reach $3 billion, up from the $2 billion target the company forecasted in February. PayPal now processes $10 million in mobile total payments volume each day, up from $6 million in March. The bulk of mobile payments can be broken down into two categories: Person-to-person money transfers and m-commerce purchases.

In mid-July, PayPal introduced a Near Field Communications-enabled peer-to-peer mobile payment service optimized for devices running Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system. The solution enables users to transfer funds by bumping their smartphones together. PayPal's expanding mobile payment platform puts the company in direct competition with the Google Wallet m-commerce service, which aligns Google with Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and financial services providers MasterCard, Citi and First Data.

For more:
- read this PayPal Blog entry

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