PayPal And Skype Team On Mobile Payments

PayPal, the online payment company that has been striking a flurry of deals in recent weeks, has teamed with Microsoft to enable money transfers in Skype’s mobile app.

In a blog post announcing the news, John Kunze, vice president of global consumer product & Xoom at PayPal, said that it is partnering with Skype to let users in 22 countries send money to other Skype users with PayPal via the Skype mobile app.

“With over one billion Skype mobile downloads to date globally, users will be able to use PayPal directly from their Skype app to seamlessly send money in the moment — like for a gift for a family member across the country or internationally,” the executive wrote.

Person to person (P2P) money transfers with PayPal on Skype rolls out Wednesday (Aug. 2) to PayPal and Skype users in the United States, United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. The P2P feature will initially be rolled out to Skype customers on the latest version of Skype for iOS and Android mobile devices, PayPal said.

Late last month, PayPal made two big announcements: that it is teaming up with JPMorgan Chase to further expand its mobile payment services, and that it is expanding its partnership with Citi to include loyalty rewards.

In a blog post yesterday, PayPal said the deal with JPMorgan Chase will drive increased choice, flexibility and value for their joint customers, as well as enable the mobile payments company to make further inroads into physical stores. Under the deal, Chase-issued cards will support PayPal and can easily be added to existing PayPal accounts. The deal will also enable Chase customers to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points anywhere PayPal is accepted. Additionally, Chase Pay will become a way to fill the PayPal wallet.

In a separate blog post, Jim Magats, VP, head of payments, product & engineering at PayPal, said that as part of the expanded collaboration with Citi, ThankYou Rewards cardholders will soon be able to redeem their points at merchants that accept PayPal online payments, contactless payments and in-app payments. Citi ThankYou Rewards cardholders can select their ThankYou Points to pay for all or part of their purchase when checking out online, Magats said in the post.