California Apparel News

Digital-payment firms PayPal and Visa Inc. announced recently that they would grow their partnership in order to serve consumer and small-business clients. As digital payments have proven essential to business during the COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion of the offerings will afford greater real-time access to payments through the San Jose, Calif.–headquartered PayPal and its Venmo and Xoom applications. It also provides immediacy for domestic and cross-border digital payments made through the PayPal Instant Transfer service that utilizes Visa Direct, the San Francisco Bay Area company’s real-time push-payments platform, which has experienced an increase in person-to-person payments of nearly 80 percent during the third quarter of 2020.

“Sending money to loved ones or giving small businesses real-time access to earnings is critical during these challenging times,” said Visa Chief Product Officer Jack Forestell. “By partnering with PayPal on a global scale, we are bringing together two trusted brands to provide hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses globally with quick and secure payment options that can help them maintain financial stability.”

In the July 2020 Pyments.com-Visa “Road to Recovery: Mainstreet SMBs and Closing the Cash-Flow Gap” report, the findings illustrated that 67 percent of small and micro businesses in the United States reported challenges stemming from a shortage of cash flow. Additionally, 91 percent of these SMBs reportedly wanted to explore options for real-time settlement. The PayPal-Visa partnership, which was announced Sept. 9 and whose expansion will become available throughout the globe over the next few months, will allow eligible merchants who use PayPal, Braintree, iZettle and Hyperwallet to bypass paper-based transactions.

“Digital is quickly becoming the preferred way for people and businesses to move money,” said Jim Magats, senior vice president of Omni Payments at PayPal. “While the global pandemic has dramatically accelerated the shift to digital, we see this move to digital as a long-term change that will outlast the pandemic. We’re excited to expand our partnership with Visa to help more customers around the world get faster access to their funds, which is all the more critical during these challenging times.