PayPal Is Upping The Ante In Mobile Payments

Not too long ago, PayPal moved in a new direction and got a new guy to head the company. David Marcus has gotten some good feedback, thanks to the things he has been doing for the company, and recently, we heard about a new acquisition which does have some implications in the mobile payment realm. Last week, James Barrese, the company CTO, made an announcement on the PayPal Blog, indicating good news for PayPal mobile payments.

It’s simple and straight to the point:

Today, I’m pleased to announce that Duff Research – a group of award-winning mobile app developers – has been acquired by PayPal. This talented team of engineers will be joining the PayPal technology team to help us build creative and simple ways for our customers to use the PayPal digital wallet.

Based in Sunnyvale, California, Duff Research has worked with some distinguished brands such as Adidas, TiVo, and Swivl. Having shipped more than 40 apps and having received CES awards and technical Emmys, this team is definitely a positive addition to the PayPal mobile payments scheme.

Strategy and innovation

These seem to be key elements in PayPal’s plan for the foreseeable future, and with Duff Research, you can place a checkmark beside those two items. This means that we will continue to see PayPal integrated in mobile payments, and we’ll probably be able to use it to pay at brick and mortar stores more and more.

On another note…

…word just came out that Visa and Mastercard will charge PayPal (and Google) for their mobile wallets. It’s an irritating development, to say the least. While platforms such as PayPal are going toward the direction of making mobile payments easy and accessible, it seems that the credit card companies are not helping at all.

This piece of news just came out, though, and PayPal/Google has not reacted yet, but we’ll surely find out which way the game will go sooner or later.

[Image via Robert Burnell]