eBay has no qualms about excluding other payment services from its marketplaces, as was the case when Google Checkout launched. But now it finds its own PayPal service shut out from Apple’s new digital wallet announced on Tuesday called Apple Pay.
Christine Smedley, Vice President of Global Brand and Communication, took to the PayPal blog on Wednesday to indirectly – but not subtlety – address fears that Apple Pay could negatively impact PayPal.
She started off by revealing PayPal is on track to process a “staggering” 1 billion mobile payments this year, and reminding readers that its Braintree unit would begin accepting Bitcoin – “we are poised to embrace new currency solutions,” she wrote.
Consumers and merchants should ask themselves if they trust the brand that’s managing their payments, Smedley wrote. And, she asked, “Who can you talk to when things go wrong?”
And while not mentioning the fact that Apple came under scrutiny recently after hackers accessed celebrity’s accounts in the Apple iCloud, she wrote, “Keeping people’s money safe is our top priority.”
In what might have been another dig at Apple Pay, she said users should ask themselves if they have a choice of funding and if they were able to use any device – Apple Pay is limited to certain iPhones and doesn’t accept all credit card payment processors.
With this in mind, she wrote – and again, one can only presume “this” refers to the Apple Pay announcement – Smedley said PayPal had updated its brand campaign with some new elements, “plus some digital work which centers on some of the concerns we know that people have. We all want our money to be secure.”
You can read the cryptic post on the PayPal blog.
