Thursday, July 20, 2017
"By acquiring TIO and integrating bill payment into our global payments platform, PayPal adds another key service in our efforts to become a part of a consumer's everyday financial life," said Dan Schulman, PayPal President and CEO. "Worldwide, more than 2 billion people do not have affordable access to basic financial services, making it difficult and expensive for consumers to carry out basic financial tasks, including bill payment."
Seventy-nine percent of TIO's customers are low-to-moderate income. CFSI and Core initially invested in TIO to reduce bill-pay costs to consumers. According to Core, when it invested in TIO in 2013, customers that year saved approximately $192 in annual walk-in bill pay charges, relative to common alternatives, an aggregate savings of $290 million overall.
In 2016, TIO acquired Softgate Systems Inc., a retail payment exchange platform that connects retailers and billers with cash-preferred consumers. Last year, TIO processed over $7 billion in payments for 14 million customers in North America. Today it has over 10,000 supported billers who process telecom, wireless, cable and utility bill payments at over 900 bill-pay kiosks, 65,000 retail walk-in locations, and through mobile and web.
"PayPal's acquisition of TIO represents one of CFSI's greatest impacts to date," said Jennifer Tescher, founder and CEO of CFSI. "In TIO, we made an early investment that helped a strong innovator become a financial health champion, and the company has built an incredible business around a real consumer pain point, shaped it, and demonstrated that it can be done profitably. Under the larger umbrella of PayPal, TIO should scale even further to benefit more Americans."
Expanding its strategic partnership with Samsung, PayPal customers in the United States will be able to use Samsung Pay to access and use their PayPal wallets. Conversely, through Braintree, a PayPal service, merchants will be able to accept Samsung Pay as a method of payment in-app and online through Braintree Direct. Both parties plan to extend availability of the joint offering to other countries in the future.
Injong Rhee Chief Technology Officer and Head of R&D, Software and Services of the Mobile Communications Business at Samsung said, "At Samsung, we pride ourselves on our open model of partnership and collaboration, which helps us deliver the best experiences to our customers. We are excited to be partnering with PayPal, one of the largest payment platforms in the world, to offer our global consumers a richer mobile wallet experience."
With the extension of its partnership with Visa, which already includes collaboration on in-app, online and in-store payments in the U.S. and Asia Pacific regions, through PayPal's banking license in Europe, it now joins Visa's network of client financial institutions to offer Visa accounts in Europe that enable customers and businesses to use PayPal funds to make purchases wherever Visa is accepted.
"Visa and PayPal have a shared goal of giving consumers a safe, convenient way to pay using their preferred device," said Bill Sheedy, CEO, Europe Region,Visa. "Expanding our partnership into Europe provides greater consumer choice and benefits merchants. By having the option to issue Visa accounts in Europe, PayPal will now have the ability to offer customers new and innovative ways to manage and move their money regardless of platform or device."
Editor's Note:
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