PayPal leaves banking industry in its wake

This comes direct from a PayPal press release, announcing that more than a dozen developers have created a new generation of applications built with the PayPal X global payments platform. Here's a sample from the early movers:

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) worked with PayPal to support application payments in the Java Store Beta and enhancements to the beta user experience. A consumer-facing storefront enabling the discovery and purchase of Java™ and JavaFX™ applications, the Java Store Beta offers an unequaled distribution mechanism for reaching more than 800 million desktop Java users worldwide and driving potential revenue opportunities through the sale of innovative content.

Carlson Marketing teamed with PayPal to provide another redemption option for participants in client loyalty and engagement programs. Participants now can redeem their program points for specific PayPal dollar amounts. The money can be deposited into their own PayPal accounts or can be given as a gift. Participants simply select the PayPal reward from an online catalog, and within minutes they will receive an e-mail confirming the transaction.

ShopSavvy, the comparison shopping application with more than 3 million users worldwide, now offers mobile payments utilizing PayPal X. PayPal’s first suite of application programming interfaces (APIs), Adaptive Payments, makes it possible for ShopSavvy users to immediately purchase items through their PayPal accounts after they scan the product barcode with their mobile phone cameras.

Payvment today introduced an e-commerce application that allows anyone to easily create a retail store on Facebook. By harnessing the power of PayPal X, customers will now be able to shop from multiple vendors in a single shopping cart, turning Facebook into an online shopping mall.

MedPayOnline uses PayPal X to power its patient payment system, which addresses the payments needs of the $2.3 trillion healthcare market for patient payments. Using Adaptive Payments, the new application allows anyone to easily pay their medical providers online.

Storenvy today launched as an online store system and social shopping community, connecting independent merchants with shoppers in a social setting. Storenvy's social shopping features allow consumers to interact and see each others' tastes and comments on products across all stores, creating a crowd-curated selection of "Most Popular" items for new users to discover. Adaptive Payments allows Storenvy shoppers to use one shopping cart and make one payment transaction, even when buying from multiple stores or multiple countries.

And this is just from the beta programme. With the official launch of the PayPal developer platform we can expect plenty more from this direction. If the banking industry doesn't want to be completely sidelined in dictating the future of payments innovation they need to get with the programme, and at least contemplate similar open platform development strategies.