PayPal has announced that it will be collaborating with Vodafone and other global telecommunications companies, as the firm showcases its latest ‘New Money’ campaign at this year’s Mobile World Congress.



As part of ‘New Money’, PayPal has confirmed partnerships with Telcel and Claro in Mexico and Brazil, to provide more than 140 million active users with digital wallets that will enable them to manage and spend money via their mobile devices.



Coupled with that, PayPal has recently acquired Xoom in order to expand its services in Africa, providing the resources for people in the US to quickly and securely send money to family and friends with an M-Pesa account in Kenya.



“We have a tremendous opportunity to transform commerce and financial services, and mobile is at the centre of that evolution,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal. “Leveraging our mobile scale and leadership, platform-agnostic approach and partnerships, PayPal is uniquely poised to leverage new value propositions. We believe the financial system should be more seamless, secure and affordable to drive the hopes and aspirations of people outside the traditional financial system.”



Having recently launched a redesigned mobile app in 145 markets which will soon support NFC, PayPal’s partnership with Vodafone will enable European Android users to make payments at Visa contactless terminals via their digital wallet. The service will start in Spain and expand to additional European markets later this year.



In the US, PayPal has also unveiled a private beta that provides retailers with a set of tools to allow them to securely sell to their customers wherever they are connected digitally. Labelled ‘PayPal Commerce’, the system will be available to use on social networking sites and other commercial applications.



Thomas Husson, Forrester mobile analyst, commented: “PayPal’s agreements show that telecom operators can become strategic partners to distribute financial services – particularly to connect to the unbanked in emerging countries, as demonstrated by the M-Pesa partnership.”

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