PayPal is bringing mobile payments to Europe with its newest partnership.
The eBay spinoff just announced an agreement that connects PayPal to telecom giant Vodafone's Wallet app, including capabilities to make contactless payments at over 400,000 retailers in Europe via PayPal.
“Money is going digital, and the smartphone is at the center of this transformation." said Rob Harper, director of mobile commerce, PayPal UK. "Mobile payments have long been at the heart of what we do. As mobile technology continues to evolve, we will continue to look at new ways to make it easier and faster for our customers to pay.”
The alliance marks the third agreement PayPal has made with a mobile wallet in the past four months. Visa and PayPal got over their beef and agreed to bring PayPal to Visa Checkout in July. PayPal then cut a deal with MasterCard, opening up MC tokenization to PayPal customers.
Now that PayPal has agreements with the two biggest credit cards and a European telecom company, look for more agreements with mobile wallets. But perhaps a Venmo integration to help solve the lingering monitization question is on the horizon.