2013年6月27日星期四

PayPal beating Square at its own game in UK

PayPal Here launched to much hype last year in the U.S. (Disclosure: I own stock in PayPal parent $EBAY.) The product, a triangular dongle, allows small merchants to take credit cards in the United States. It was very much a catch-up move by the payments giant to compete with San Francisco-based Square.

Now PayPal is leaping ahead with an EMV version of its PayPal Here reader, which is a better fit for many international markets. I was recently in London and had the chance to get a demo from PayPal’s Narik Patel, director of mobile merchant services. You can see a video demo here.

Some context for U.S.-based readers: although magnetic stripe is the predominant technology in the U.S. for credit cards, that’s not the case in much of the world. In Europe, Chip and PIN is dominant. Each credit card has an electronic chip on it. In order to authorize a transaction, the customer slides the card into the chip reader and then enters a 4-6 digit PIN. This has the effect of significantly reducing fraud.

Chip and PIN readers require much more complex hardware than the magnetic stripe technology used in the U.S. This makes life a bit more difficult for vendors of payments solutions.

The reader and its packaging are beautifully designed. “The number of iterations the hardware has gone through is in double digits as we wanted to make sure it was as intuitive as possible as well as having that ‘premium’ PayPal branded look and feel. The blue back has gone through at least eight versions to get to the blue finish we wanted,” Patel said. ”We have also stress tested it under several conditions – drop, number of card reads/inserts, battery management, how easy it is to press any key on its keyboard, etc.”

The device connects to a phone using Bluetooth. Setting up Bluetooth is often a sore spot, even for experienced users. PayPal built a nice tutorial to help guide customers through the process.

The reader is currently in testing at the Greedy Goat ice cream stand in London’s Borough Market. (I highly recommend their raspberry chili ice cream.) A number of merchants near PayPal’s London offices are also testing it.

It’s a small but important step and shows that PayPal president David Marcus is intent on reforming the commonly held belief that PayPal is slow and bureaucratic. Marcus is personally involved in design reviews, Patel said. PayPal’s move may become even more important as rules in the U.S. change over the next several years and the U.S. moves closer to the European model.

Despite a forecast that predicted just a light sprinkling for the early starters, the touring professional for the stunning Maynooth venue was completely unperturbed by some heavy rainfall as he carded a five-under-par 67 to share second place with Hoey, Jean Baptiste Gonnet of France, American rookie Peter Uihlein and Dutchman Joost Luiten.

As 29-year old Swede Oscar Floren shrugged off a niggling foot injury to fire an immaculate, six-under-par 66 to head the field, the rain did little for the attendance on the roomy Montgomerie Course.

Lowry and Hoey certainly did their bit but it was another bitterly disappointing day for world No 2 Rory McIlroy, who struggled to a two-over 74 alongside the Offaly man and 2006 champion Thomas Bjorn of Denmark.

The 24-year old from Holywood drove the ball poorly again and with his putter still in the deep freeze, he will need to shoot a sub-par round today just to make the halfway cut.

McIlroy confessed that he is “a little lost at the moment”, which will do little to assuage the fears of the tournament organisers over his presence in the draw tomorrow.

“He played brilliant,” said Bjorn, who shot a 68. “You can see he believes he can play this golf course and he played really well and solid, and just kept plodding away and took his chances when he got them. I thought he played really nice today.”

Bidding to make history by becoming the first player to win the same event on the European Tour as both an amateur and a professional, he drove into sand and dropped a shot at the tough 10th, but then birdied the 13th, 14th and 15th and then followed a great chip and putt birdie at the par-five 18th with two more birdie fours at the fourth and eighth.

“I got off to a shaky enough start with a bogey on 10 which wasn’t ideal but I knew my golf was good enough coming into the week,” Lowry said. “I’m really happy with the way I followed up that bogey to start and I could have birdied my last hole to shoot 66.

“I made a nice up and down to birdie the 13th, the short par four, after hitting a pretty bad tee shot right. But birdied there and birdied 14 straight away by hitting an eight-iron into about six feet. Then I got up and down and birdied the 15th for three in a row to get to two under and started cruising from there.

Read the full story at austpay.com!

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