eBay Is Dumping PayPal For Dutch Rival Adyen (cnn.com)

schwit1 shares a report from CNN: EBay, one of the world's biggest online marketplaces, announced Wednesday that it's dropping PayPal as its main partner for processing payments in favor of Dutch company Adyen. In 2002, eBay paid $1.5 billion to buy PayPal, an online payments company whose founders include Silicon Valley heavyweights Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. It proved to be a very successful investment. When eBay spun off PayPal in 2015 -- something investors and analysts had urged it to do -- the payments company's market value was close to $50 billion. It's now above $100 billion. Based in Amsterdam, Adyen already works with other big tech companies including Uber and Netflix. It says it handles more than 200 different payment methods and over 150 currencies. The shift will start gradually in North America later this year and eBay expects most marketplace customers around the world to be using the new system in 2021.

Comments

errrr no

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd want to switch to some payment service I've never heard of and don't trust...... why?

Re:errrr no

[AHuxley]

AC the "why" is in the payments from gift cards, other payment systems.
Why accept CC when lots of people may want or can only use a gift card. The ability to work with a network of gift cards globally open up the gift card, bank payments, e-commerce payment systems and the CC market.
More nations, more banks, more gift cards, new payment systems.

Re:errrr no

[JaredOfEuropa]

What’s so terrible about paying with PayPal compared to any other method that doesn’t involve trusting the merchant enough to receive your credit card details?

Re:errrr no

[I'm New Around Here]

I buy stuff on eBay. I click on the button to pay. I get a page that has my information on it. I either click pay, or choose which card/account I want to use for that item, and then click pay.

It is no harder than any other site with a shopping cart.

Re:errrr no

[ZipK]

It hasn't been that way for some time, every item I bought last week didn't require me to then go log into PayPal, I selected it as the option then clicked pay and I was done.

Most likely you previously clicked the option that obviating the need to log in to PayPal from then on. That features has been available for several years.

Re:errrr no

[cascadingstylesheet]

The why is simple - the flow for paying with PayPal is terrible. It involves logging in multiple times to multiple different services, being bounced off eBays web page, to pay pal's web page, all kinds of crazy shit going on. This lets ebay just have a sane payments form like every other eCommerce site ever.

The "crazy" flow is the whole point.

Instead of trusting every retailer on the internet with your "secret numbers" (plus the super secret number on the back of the card! lol), you just bounce to PayPal, and log in there with your - wait for it - PayPal secrets, on PayPal's own site. Then bounce back to the retailer to complete the transaction.

All you've authorized is the one transaction you are doing right now, and the retailer never gets your secrets that would allow them to charge your account anytime they want for as much as they want. Like they would get if you use a credit card.

A few seconds thought and even non-technical people can see how this is more secure, much more secure.

Re:errrr no

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so long ago ebay was forcing you to use paypal,

Because eBay and Paypal were effectively the same company. They split in 2015, and as part of that split they had an operational agreement that eBay would process at least 80% of its payments via Paypal (see https://www.finextra.com/newsa...).

Now that eBay is becoming a true free elf, they are looking to cut costs by using another payment processor.

Re:errrr no

[eclectro]

The horror stories surrounding paypal are legion (search for Paypal warning - there could be some old slashdot posts around too). I still hold my breath when doing a transaction with them. They found ways to hold up sellers' money countless times and it would often just disappear. I even felt guilty using Paypal just knowing their sordid past.

This is a smart move by ebay and you can bet there are boatloads of people who are ready to jump ship.

There really seems to be a lot of karma in this, and don't forget that everyone's hero Elon Musk made his money from "horrible" Paypal.

Re:errrr no

[hazardPPP]

The only reason services like paypal exist are because bank transfers are typically stupidly overpriced, often far too slow and the banks tend to make them too convoluted to perform.

Yes, in North America (and maybe some other parts of the world, I don't know). In Europe, bank transfers are easy, and in fact, a lot of commerce is done this way...the merchant gives you the bank account number and you pay into it. Merchant doesn't have any of your data (except your name and address, which you fill in when you do the bank transfer - but you could fake that with pretty much no consequence).

Granted, it's not instant like a credit card, it usually takes a day or two for the money to show up on the merchant's account. So maybe not great for things you want access to instantly (like an online subscription), but OK for things that in any case require processing time (like something that you buy online that will anyway arrive 5, 7, 10, 30 days later).

International payments are also easy, thanks to IBANs (international bank account numbers) which contain all the necessary information in a single string of letters and digits (North American banks, for some reason, do not use the IBAN system).

Processing fees for domestic transfers are not very high (not bigger than the processing fees credit cards charge - except you don't see those, as they are rolled into the price). International fees could be quite a bit lower (however, your credit card also charges currency conversion fees...not always explicitly, but via the exchange rate).

At any rate, in Europe, the default way of paying lots of things (rent, utility bills, monthly insurance premiums, etc. etc.) is paying straight into the merchant's/service provider's account. Before the advent of online payments, everyone would get pre-filled payment slips in the mail (now in most places you can opt out of this, and go completely electronic) - payment slips use a standardised form btw - and you take these to any bank (or in many countries, also the post office) and pay at the counter. If that also happens to be your bank, they can deduct the money from your account. Everywhere you can pay with cash (and at most places nowadays, debit or credit card as well). The bank charges a fee for this transaction (usually around 1%, with a minumum and maximum fee cap, i.e. they won't actually charge 1% on a $1000 payment, but less, but neither on a $1 payment, but more). When you log into your internet banking, the interface usually presents itself in the shape of the standardized payment slip, so that you can just copy the information easily. Online merchants will, if you select bank transfer as the method of payment, often generate a payment slip for you in PDF, that you can either print (to pay in person at the bank) or just copy the information into your internet banking form.

Good news

[AmiMoJo]

PayPal is just awful. High fees, crap service, tax dodging and the dispute resolution is a joke.

These new guys can't be any worse.... Can they?

Re:Good news

[AmiMoJo]

No one really knows PayPal. Their ToS are some of the longest and most unreadable in the world, and change often.

Re:Good news

[bobbied]

I've never had an issue with PayPal's service... The fees are a bit higher than simple credit card processors, but not that bad considering you don't have to do any of the setup work to take credit cards with PayPal. Sure, if you are a retailer processing lots of credit card purchases you'd be better of with somebody else, but if you do one or two transactions now and then, PayPal is fine.

I find the dispute resolution part of PayPal works just fine, but you have to follow the process for shipping and insurance and demand the other party does too.

I do probably 10-20 transactions a year, both buying and selling on E-Bay and other places using PayPal and I've never had an issue with PayPal as a service, though I've had issues with buyers and sellers who where trying to use PayPal and didn't know what they where doing.

I haven't a clue what you mean by Tax Dodging....

eBay roadmap is clear

[Parker Lewis]

Then eBay will buy Adyen for $1.5 billion and sell it later for $50 billion.

Re:eBay roadmap is clear

[bobbied]

Adyen was valued at 2.2 billion during the most recent investments. They expect to be valued at at least 6 billion when they do their IPO, rumoured to be this year. I don't think they will sell to eBay for pennies on the dollar.

I say we hold an auction! Anybody know a website for that?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

eBay and PayPal separated about 3 years ago. They are completely unrelated companies now. The only business between them was a (public) 5-year operating agreement to keep Paypal as the primary option. That expires June of 2020. The agreement allows a small percentage of transactions to be processed outside Paypal in 2018 and 2019 (obviously to allow time for development of an alternative).

Source: eBay employee, but not of privileged information. The above was all made public during the public earnings call this week.

Adyen Supports Paypal

[muphin]

Ironically, they accept paypal too :p - https://www.adyen.com/pricing/...

Re:Adyen Supports Paypal

[Teun]

Years ago E-bay bought a successful Dutch company called Marktplaats.
Marktplaats has always accepted iDeal because it is trusted and cheap.
As seller you give your bank account to the buyer who via iDeal pays the sum upon which the seller sends the item.
Very recently Marktplaats and iDeal have expanded their service by enabling the seller to send an iDeal request on which the buyer clicks and enters his/her bank details, neither of the two will see the others' bank details, the price is €0.40 per deal.
They now also offer a service whereby both sides will be guaranteed exchange of goods for money but it will cost another 2% of the sum.

Re:Why?

[SeaFox]

Have you tried reading the summary? It has interesting information.

How does this new company compare to PayPal?

[jonwil]

Does this new company do any of the scumbag things PayPal is able to get away with but that banks generally can't legally do? Like freezing your account or taking money out of it for no reason?

EU payment processors are way cheaper

[davecb]

North American companies used to quote my customers about 3%. EU ones quoted andout 1/2%, but wouldn't or couldn't do business in the US and Canada.