PayPal rolled out a new Person to Person (P2P) money transfer product today. You may have thought that PayPal already offered a P2P product, and that their acquired company, Venmo, was in the business as well. And you would be correct. There appear to be a few differences in capability with the new product called PayPal.me. PayPal.me will work internationally, unlike Venmo and it uses a unique, personal URL that streamlines the process. As Zdnet reports:
Similar to Square’s Cashtags, PayPal.me utilizes a short customized URL (paypal.me/johndoe, for example) that users can share with others via text, email, instant messenger, blogs or social media. The link takes recipients to portal where they log into PayPal, enter the amount owed and then send the money on its way.
PayPal already offers an online experience for requesting money, but it requires users to log into the PayPal website and enter another user’s email address to create a request. PayPal.me has far fewer steps in the process.
The new PayPal.me product does require that both the sender and the receiver have registered PayPal accounts, unlike Venmo. With differing capabilities and price points, it will be interesting to watch if PayPal defines the best attributes and creates a single product for this growing market
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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