The partnership will bring the popular money transfer service to Vodafone Pay to enable contactless payments on Android smartphones
Vodafone has partnered with PayPal to allow customers to link their accounts to contactless SIMs to purchase goods at more than 400,000 UK retailers.
Previously, customers could only sync Visa and MasterCard accounts. With the addition of PayPal, Vodafone UK head of consumer services Kate Wright claims the operator now offers “customers greater choice than any other mobile payment service.”
The standout feature for Vodafone Pay is the ability to make payments even when an Android device is powered down, due to the contactless SIM. These can be ordered in the Vodafone Wallet app, online, or at any Vodafone UK store. The service is also compatible with Transport for London (TfL) and National Rail Services.
Payments of up to £30 can be made via contactless terminals. According to the UK Cards Association, contactless payments now account for 18 per cent of overall card spend. In the first half of this year alone, there were 1.1 billion contactless transactions. There were 1.05 billion in the whole of 2015. A total of £9.27 billion has been spent in 2016 so far, up from £7.75 billion in the same period the previous year.
PayPal UK director of mobile commerce Rob Harper said: “Money is going digital, and the smartphone is at the centre of this transformation. Mobile payments have long been at the heart of what we do.
“In fact, this year marks 10 years since we first launched a mobile payment service in the UK. 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.”
