PayPal has just unveiled a new peer to peer payment method that makes use of a unique approach in transferring money. Called PayPal.Me, the service basically allows users to create their own user profiles that come with a custom made URL (for example: paypal.me/username), which they can then share with other people through text message, email, via instant messenger, or through social media platforms, among many other ways, in order to request cash. To sign up for their own username, users can go visit PayPal.Me’s website.
PayPal is no stranger to exploring peer to peer payment methods. Some may recall Venmo, the social mobile app seemingly favored by members of the younger demographic (who are also almost always equipped with mobile devices) when paying back money loaned from friends or family, or when splitting the bills at restaurants (like Subway, for instance).
So what is the deal with PayPal.Me? Isn’t PayPal introducing a new service that might compete with its existing Venmo? The company is quick to clarify that Venmo only works with banking institutions, credit cards, and debit cards based in the United States. PayPal.Me, on the other hand, can work for a much wider scope of users.
To date, the company has about 170 million active users across the globe, requesting and sending cash via PayPal. But with the creation of PayPal.Me, the company wants to provide its users with a mobile friendly method for facilitating payments, and more importantly, one that is quicker and less complicated than the usual PayPal process, which involves logging in to the website, accessing the request money feature, and then entering another user’s email address in order to create the money request. With PayPal.Me, all the users need to do is just share their personalized URL.
In trying to come up with simpler solutions to money transfers, PayPal discovered that small debts (usually between family members and friends) actually add up to a large sum over time. For instance, people are owed about $51 billion in total, but the fact of the matter is, users often feel awkward about asking others to pay back small debts.
Now to be clear about it, PayPal.Me will not do the asking on behalf of users. What it does, however, is provide a very easy way for people to pay back those debts without much fuss. Also, as explained by Meron Colbeci, Senior Director of Global Consumer Products at PayPal, the new PayPal.Me service will not be supplanting the company’s existing payment protocols. Instead, it will be offered as another option, one that is quick and snappy.
The PayPal.Me service is being rolled out in 18 markets, which include the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria.
