PayPal is launching a new peer-to-peer payment service that could make it a lot easier for friends to transfer money to each other. Called PayPal.me, it essentially facilitates e-transfers via text, email, or social media.
It’s an ingeniously simple system: To request an e-transfer, a user just sends a simple link to her debtor friend; then, that friend clicks the link, selects an amount, and hits send to pay. And, as The Verge notes, the links, generated through PayPal.me, are themselves quite simple as well, taking the basic form of ‘paypal.me/username/amount’, with the amount of money requested being in the local currency.
The service is launching in the US, the UK, and 16 other countries, and represents yet another way in which PayPal is aiming to take over the global payments market. Having become its own, independent company this year, PayPal has been active in a number of transfer-related areas in the overall payments market, from a partnership with a mobile airtime transfer company to its acquisition of a international remittance-sending business. The launch of PayPal.me is another clear step forward in this area, but it’s only a small part of PayPal’s larger mission to transform the industry, with major efforts underway in areas like e-commerce and mPayments.
Source: The Verge
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