techpaedia

PayPal goes mobile

May 25th, 2006

PayPal has launched a new service to let users send money by text messages (SMS) from their mobile phones. It’s very easy to set up and even quicker if you are already an existing PayPal member. After registering with PayPal, you provide them with your mobile telephone number and set up a PIN (Mobile PIN). This is different and separate from your PayPal password. You will then receive an automated call from PayPal asking you to confirm your PIN, after which you are ready to go!

To send money to someone, you simply text “send 10.50 to 07123 456 789“ to 62226 or you can also call 0845 355 0000 and follow the prompts.

Texting “send 10.50 to 07123 456 789“ to 62226 will send £10.50 to mobile number 07123 456 789

After you send the text message, PayPal will make an automated call giving you the details of the transactions and asking you to confirm your PIN before processing the payment. So, your PayPal account it not at risk even if your phone is stolen!

You will also be able to use the PayPal mobile service to buy things where you see ‘Text to Buy’ on a poster, in a magazine or at an event.

You can see a demo of the Text to Buy service here and for the mobile service click here.

The service is free for PayPal personal accounts but standard rates apply for Premier/Business PayPal accounts.

Other text commands compatible with the service include

• “send 10.50 to name@domainname.com“ to send money to someone’s email address instead of their mobile
• “bal“ to check your balance
• “cancel“ to cancel a pending payment

See PayPal’s page on mobile keywords and commands for a full list of all the commands you can use.

Will this catch on and become a more widespread way of paying for goods and services? I think it’s very likely if the banks introduce a similar service but it’s nonetheless refreshing to see new ways to pay for things and send money. We have relied on exchanging bits of paper for goods and services for a very long time and it’s about time this changed.

The PayPal mobile service is supported by most UK networks, even including the lesser known extreme Mobile (a Vodafone MVNO - Mobile Virtual Network Operator)

• Vodafone
• T-Mobile
• Orange
• O2
• Three
• Virgin
• Tesco
• Extreme Mobile

Current networks supporting the service coverage in the US includes:

• Alltel
• Sprint
• T-Mobile and
• Verizon

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