INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Google earlier this year rebranded all of its payment services under Google Payto help it double down on making transactions across its
platform more frictionless (and more used)
Now comes another development: PayPal and Google are kicking off a deep integration, where users who add their PayPal details to their
Google Play accounts will be able to pay bills and for other items, using PayPal, without logging in and without leaving the Google
services.
The integration, when it goes live later this year, will cover apps like Gmail, YouTube, Google Store and any services using
Google Pay — and it will include not just payments but also peer-to-peer transfers.
This is not the first time that Google and PayPal have
worked together — the latter has been a payment option in Google Playsince 2014, in-store, and in online transactions that were managed by
Google and a Google Pay option since last year
And similarly, Google itself has a number of other partners from the payments world, including Braintree, Sripe, Cybersource, Vantiv, Visa
and Mastercard.
This new phase of the relationship is interesting for how it benefits both sides
For Google, it will mean that users are less likely to leave Google sites to complete a transaction, potentially never to return; and will
give users one more option for how to pay for things, making Google own sales more likely to be completed rather than abandoned
For PayPal, it will give users one more easy option for using its rails when buying things, and that will translate into more transaction
revenues for PayPal.
We&re in an interesting phase in the world of payments at the moment
The challenge is no longer getting people used to the idea of paying online: a substantial proportion of consumers in developed markets are
willing and able to pay for items on digital platforms
The problem is one of trying to capture and keep users& attention: there are potentially now too many payment options, and too many places
for us to visit too easily
The struggle for app publishers, platform owners, and others now is to keep people engaged in yourproduct, rather than migrating elsewhere,
which could lead to people abandoning their purchases and also leaving your service for another one.
This is part of the reason why Amazon
is so effective: it provides a very seamless and quick way for people to browse and buy things, even more so if you are a Prime
subscriber.
In payments, this is translating into a new wave of services where transactions are being enabled at the point at which you need
them, with minimal friction: no log-ins, no jumping to new sites or apps, no additional steps
Google and PayPal are not the only ones who are now knitting all of this together more tightly.
Just earlier this month, Microsoft
integrated its own answer to Google Pay, Microsoft Pay, into Outlook precisely for this reason, with Stripe as one of the first active
And PayPal itself is buying mobile payments company iZettle to close the loop better on point of sale payments in markets like Europe.
I
asked Bill Ready, the EVP and COO of PayPal (and previously the co-founder and head of Braintree), why it taken this long to get this
integration in place on Google
I didn&t get a direct answer, but a hint that although tighter integration is the goal, it not always that easy to stitch together services
from different silos:
&We are always looking for ways to improve the experience and to make payments even more seamless and secure for our
customers wherever they want to pay,& he said
&After the successful launch with Android Pay last year, which built on our existing integration with Google Play, our teams came together
to enable this new experience, which will allow customers in the U.S
who addPayPalto any one of Google services to be able to pay across the Google ecosystem, anywhere thatPayPalis offered as a payment method,
with only minimal setup.&
