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PayPal Gets Aussies To Pay Up |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Thursday, 22 November 2007 |
PayPal Australia has reached a five million user milestone in under
three years as the company rolls out a mobile payment solution that
will cut costs for merchants and consumers looking to pay for products
and services using their mobile phones.
Andrew Pipolo, Managing Director for PayPal Australia told mobilised
that while PayPal's mobile commerce (m-commerce) initiative is not new
to the company the service has been tailored to Australian conditions.
Mobile commerce "has been a little slow in this market, we
think PayPal's entry and the way it is setup where merchants can
develop their
own WAP application and consumers will be able to use that and select
PayPal as a payment option will see m-commerce really grow in this
market," he said.
Pipolo, who has a long resume with electronic payments in this
country says he believes PayPal's Internet service is the fastest
growing new payment option in thirty years and he has high expectations
of the new mobile initiative, though he was unwilling to be specific
about his growth objectives.
Several
businesses have already signed up to use the Paypal Mobile Checkout service and are
in various stages of rolling out customer access these include the service. Among these are Warner
Music, Hoyts and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. From today the following merchant have mobile websites
up and doing business --
Deals Direct (m.catchoftheday.com.au), Ready Flowers (www.mobi.readyflowers.com.au) and Mobile Wine Club (www.mobilewineclub.com).
"We have eight merchants already to go on the system," said Pipolo with
three going live at launch and the rest coming on line before
Christmas."
Pipolo explained that while there are existing mobile payment
options available on the AUstralian market, they are generally
unsecured and the fees run as high as 50 per cent which has restricted
its up take. So far only small digital products have gained any sort of
traction with mobile phone ring tones and wallpapers accounting for the
bulk of revenues outside the Telcos walled gardens.
In contrast to these high fees, Pipolo said PayPal's pricing starts as
low as 2.4 per cent plus A$0.30 on transactions up to A$5000 (see fee
structure at the bottom of this story).
Customers can either use their registered PayPal PIN number or email
address to confirm their identity saving them from submitting their
credit card details to the merchant over the mobile phone network. The
new system also makes things easier for merchants to establish mobile
commerce payment options as the system works in a similar way to the
company's Internet payment schemes which can be easily deployed by any
registered merchant.
According to research conducted by Galaxy Research 64 per cent of
Australians would like to purchase products through their
mobile phone, says Pipolo. With interest in things like movie tickets,
pizza, gifts or music high on their shopping list. Even 51 per cent of
mobile owners aged 50 years and over want to purchase
goods and services through the mobile, says the research.
However, 87 per cent have
concerns about purchasing goods and services through the mobile with
the security of personal information (72%) being the most common
concern.
"With
PayPal, your financial information is never shared with anyone, which
is one of the reasons behind PayPal's rapid growth in Australia ,"
says PayPal Australia Managing Director Andrew Pipolo. "We're
very excited to be launching Paypal Mobile Checkout just as we hit 5
million accounts in Australia . We believe Mobile Checkout will
be embraced by Australian PayPal account holders for the same reasons
that they choose PayPal for internet shopping - choice, convenience
and security"
Monthly
Sales Price Per Transaction (All prices in AUD)
$0.00 - $5,000.00
= 2.4% + $0.30
$5,000.01 - $15,000.00 =
2.0% + $0.30
$15,000.01 - $150,000.00 = 1.5% + $0.30
>
$150,000.00 = 1.1% + $0.30
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