PayPal has been the dominant presence in the online payment arena for quite some time now, however both Amazon and Google have been fiercely competing with PayPal for a share of the online payment business.
Now PayPal is launching their new platform, PayPal X, which will let third party developers incorporate the PayPal online payment system in applications they develop. PayPal is providing API support tools and a software development toolkit, along with pre-existing products that will help to create instant storefronts for Facebook, plus a new software toolkit for building mobile payment applications. According to PayPal, developers will only need to work with a few lines of software code to integrate a PayPal checkout button onto a mobile device to accept mobile payments.
Amazon also recently introduced a new service called PayPhrase which will allow customers to use a phrase instead of a credit card number to pay for their purchases on Amazon or their partner websites. All websites that accept Checkout by Amazon will have the ability to use the PayPhrase service.
Bill Me Later, an alternative online payment service, is relatively new to the game and is already used by more than 1,000 merchants due to the demand for the service where customers receive the bill in the mail and can choose to pay in full or to pay over time with interest.
As consumers become increasingly concerned about the online security of their credit card and other financial information, the popularity of alternative payment services is sure to grow.
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