Who is the 'first party' in this case? The banking system as a whole?
If it's the whole banking system then I'm not sure how that's solved, because as I understand in the US it's still not easy to send money to another private individual via the banking system. And there are Venmo and cashapp and such now but they are just other third parties.
Meanwhile in the UK here it has been possible for decades to send money between bank accounts directly, and free. I still use PayPal though, because my use for it isn't sending money to individuals, it's being able to buy things online without creating an account and without giving my card details.
Maybe people are thinking in phone terms, and the first party is "Apple" or "Google" and the solution is Apple Pay or Google Wallet?
Thank you for providing a different point of view, I didn't realize things were so complicated in the united states. In the EU there is a system called iDEAL which iirc is maintained by a collaboration of different banks and lets you pay for stuff online instantly and with zero fee. For sending money person-to-person, there are apps like tikkie that are just a thin wrapper around iDEAL. And in cases where these things don't work, you can just do a direct bank transfer by typing in the other person's IBAN in your bank's app/website. Slightly less convenient, but still nearly instant and zero fee.
Never heard of iDEAL. Wikipedia says its a a Dutch system that was acquired by the "European payments initiative" last year. The EPI just became active as a payment system 1 month ago.
This is VERY much still in development and not at all an established system in the EU.
Not sure about the name of the systems, and I've seen them change names a lot over the years
But I think it's a pretty universal thing in the EU, that you're able to pay directly using an IBAN, I've even seen "direct bank tranfer" in stores that sell across the EU
In Poland we have BLIK. It's simple, you go to your bank app and generate code, then you write that code and money is transferred. Also you can send money to phone number. That's very great system, with no fees.
As a german I've never heard about iDEAL. The Wikipedia article says that it is mainly used in the netherlands
Ideal is not the same, by any means, as PayPal. Read up.
With ideal you loose your money. Ideal is made from the pov of the bank and the shop selling you stuff. Its almost impossible to claim your money back without the sellers consent.
Tikkie is not the same as PayPal since tikkie only works with EU banks. (and quite possibly at this moment only NL banks) PayPal does not need a bank account. Its also not really a wrapper around ideal but thats another discussion. And mostly a semantic one so lets not go there.
Effe wat meer moeite doen en de kleine lettertjes lezen medenedelander :)
Actually, there's a better one for Europe. The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is an EU directive to allow payments to be done through APIs exposed by the bank. It's essentially a wrapper for a bank transfer. Most new payments companies are just unifying these APIs.
Some counties do it better than others. The UK is very good (with the exception of starling bank). I remember Hungary being a pain.
iDEAL sounds a lot like Bancontact/Payconic in Belgium.
Which doesn’t do everything Paypal does either. Others have mentioned the buyer protection, but there’s also multiple payment methods you can link to it, subscription management, and one-click payments (where it also enters your address for shipping) - and crucially: available worldwide.
Just another US "first world country" exceptions lol
I think it’s that PayPal was one of the firsts to provide a method for collecting credit card transactions electronically.
Before PayPal, you’d often have to visit a website, then call the phone number for the seller to collect payment.
eBay needed paypal because their sellers were often not businesses, just people yardsaling stuff online.
Coincidentally, I interned at a PayPal competitor in 1998 that went under during the bust. We had an electronic interface through MS access, but it was a still a human entering in the CC number into one of those dial pads on our side and then confirming the transaction. I’m sure with all of the concerns around security nowadays that you can understand why that was a terrible long term business model.
Thanks for the context. Here in the UK I never experienced a website that didn't take payment via credit card directly as a first option - that's always been there default, with some sites offering PayPal as a second or third way to pay.
And about punching the numbers manually then well, sometimes a bit of Mechanical Turk works just fine lol! :)
I deal with websites today that are optimized for PayPal first with worse second and third options.
A lot of websites with third party vendors rely on PayPal since it is the cheapest account for a seller with international access and PayPal handles the fraud investigation.
I don’t think you’re thinking of the same time frame though
Canada has Interac, Europe has another standard, the US has another standard... I wish they would all just get together and have a single way to do it that works everywhere in the world...
in the US it's still not easy to send money to another private individual via the banking system
Bizarre
In Poland for online payments everyone uses Blik. It lets you generate six digit number in your banking app that you then give to the site you're making payment to. Your banking app then asks you if you want to make the payment with information about how much you pay and to whom. You accept and you're done, no card details were shared.
I don't understand the PayPal one either.
Who is the 'first party' in this case? The banking system as a whole?
If it's the whole banking system then I'm not sure how that's solved, because as I understand in the US it's still not easy to send money to another private individual via the banking system. And there are Venmo and cashapp and such now but they are just other third parties.
Meanwhile in the UK here it has been possible for decades to send money between bank accounts directly, and free. I still use PayPal though, because my use for it isn't sending money to individuals, it's being able to buy things online without creating an account and without giving my card details.
Maybe people are thinking in phone terms, and the first party is "Apple" or "Google" and the solution is Apple Pay or Google Wallet?
Thank you for providing a different point of view, I didn't realize things were so complicated in the united states. In the EU there is a system called iDEAL which iirc is maintained by a collaboration of different banks and lets you pay for stuff online instantly and with zero fee. For sending money person-to-person, there are apps like tikkie that are just a thin wrapper around iDEAL. And in cases where these things don't work, you can just do a direct bank transfer by typing in the other person's IBAN in your bank's app/website. Slightly less convenient, but still nearly instant and zero fee.
Never heard of iDEAL. Wikipedia says its a a Dutch system that was acquired by the "European payments initiative" last year. The EPI just became active as a payment system 1 month ago.
This is VERY much still in development and not at all an established system in the EU.
Not sure about the name of the systems, and I've seen them change names a lot over the years
But I think it's a pretty universal thing in the EU, that you're able to pay directly using an IBAN, I've even seen "direct bank tranfer" in stores that sell across the EU
In Poland we have BLIK. It's simple, you go to your bank app and generate code, then you write that code and money is transferred. Also you can send money to phone number. That's very great system, with no fees.
As a german I've never heard about iDEAL. The Wikipedia article says that it is mainly used in the netherlands
Ideal is not the same, by any means, as PayPal. Read up.
With ideal you loose your money. Ideal is made from the pov of the bank and the shop selling you stuff. Its almost impossible to claim your money back without the sellers consent.
Tikkie is not the same as PayPal since tikkie only works with EU banks. (and quite possibly at this moment only NL banks) PayPal does not need a bank account. Its also not really a wrapper around ideal but thats another discussion. And mostly a semantic one so lets not go there.
Effe wat meer moeite doen en de kleine lettertjes lezen medenedelander :)
Actually, there's a better one for Europe. The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is an EU directive to allow payments to be done through APIs exposed by the bank. It's essentially a wrapper for a bank transfer. Most new payments companies are just unifying these APIs.
Some counties do it better than others. The UK is very good (with the exception of starling bank). I remember Hungary being a pain.
iDEAL sounds a lot like Bancontact/Payconic in Belgium.
Which doesn’t do everything Paypal does either. Others have mentioned the buyer protection, but there’s also multiple payment methods you can link to it, subscription management, and one-click payments (where it also enters your address for shipping) - and crucially: available worldwide.
Just another US "first world country" exceptions lol
I think it’s that PayPal was one of the firsts to provide a method for collecting credit card transactions electronically.
Before PayPal, you’d often have to visit a website, then call the phone number for the seller to collect payment.
eBay needed paypal because their sellers were often not businesses, just people yardsaling stuff online.
Coincidentally, I interned at a PayPal competitor in 1998 that went under during the bust. We had an electronic interface through MS access, but it was a still a human entering in the CC number into one of those dial pads on our side and then confirming the transaction. I’m sure with all of the concerns around security nowadays that you can understand why that was a terrible long term business model.
Thanks for the context. Here in the UK I never experienced a website that didn't take payment via credit card directly as a first option - that's always been there default, with some sites offering PayPal as a second or third way to pay.
And about punching the numbers manually then well, sometimes a bit of Mechanical Turk works just fine lol! :)
I deal with websites today that are optimized for PayPal first with worse second and third options.
A lot of websites with third party vendors rely on PayPal since it is the cheapest account for a seller with international access and PayPal handles the fraud investigation.
I don’t think you’re thinking of the same time frame though
Canada has Interac, Europe has another standard, the US has another standard... I wish they would all just get together and have a single way to do it that works everywhere in the world...
In the meantime: https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide
Bizarre
In Poland for online payments everyone uses Blik. It lets you generate six digit number in your banking app that you then give to the site you're making payment to. Your banking app then asks you if you want to make the payment with information about how much you pay and to whom. You accept and you're done, no card details were shared.