PayPal partners Home Depot to trial POS tech

PayPal has taken another step in its journey to the high street, beginning a pilot of its new point-of-sale technology with US retail giant Home Depot.

The small-scale trial means that a group of PayPal employees can use their PayPal accounts to buy goods at five Home Depot stores.

Participants can either swipe a card connected to their account or enter a code and their phone number into the terminal.

The pilot is a small step in PayPal's ambitions to take on card companies Visa and MasterCard in the high street as the boundaries between online and offline merge.

The company eventually plans to roll out a "one-stop shop" for merchants, covering the whole shopping lifecycle - 'acquisition', 'conversation' and 'retention'.

Says Anuj Nayar, director, communications, PayPal, in a blog post: "Stay tuned throughout the year as we continue to re-imagine money and make it work better for merchants and consumers - whatever device you're on, wherever you are in the world, and however you prefer to pay."

Related Companies

PayPal

Channels

Retail banking Payments

Keywords

Cards Mobile & online banking E-commerce Eftpos

Comments: (3)

A Finextra member 09 January, 2012, 11:12

Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up

0 likes

I prefer to pay using chip and PIN.

Report abuse

Pat Carroll - ValidSoft - London 11 January, 2012, 10:43

0 likes

As the first comment against this article shows, security is a real concern for end-users, and I’d say PayPal needs to be very mindful not to let any perceived weaknesses in this area have a detrimental effect on either the trial or future uptake of the system. The US may not use Chip and PIN, but users in the Europe who are used to the system may not feel entirely confident in the security measures briefly mentioned above.

What we’re seeing is a move towards a multi-layered approach to security, which in this case – at POS – could involve using a technology called Proximity Correlation Logic. This works by checking the proximity of the POS, where someone is making the transaction, to the card holder’s mobile phone. It’s not about tracking users to see where they are; rather it’s just about detecting that if the POS and the phone are NOT in the same jurisdiction, there is a much increased chance that the transaction is fraudulent. This can be done in complete compliance with European Data Protection Law, so privacy should not be a concern.

Report abuse

A Finextra member 11 January, 2012, 12:23

0 likes

As I said, we in the developed world are now used to making secure payments at POS, whether or not we understand why that is the case. Why would we want to take the backward step that would inevitably result from adopting US payment technologies?