PayPal Seeks to Become the Web Payment System to Rule Them All

eBay is set to unveil PayPal Access, a service for letting users use their PayPal accounts on other websites without the need to register an account or a credit card.


The service, which will make its debut Wednesday at eBay’s X.Commerce developers conference in San Francisco, essentially eliminates the need to register an account at other retail websites, decreasing the steps needed to make a purchase and lowering the risk that a hacked ecommerce website will be able to steal credit card information.
“What’s different about PayPal Access is that it provides everything consumers and merchants need to create an account and transaction – from shipping to payment details,” a PayPal spokesperson told Mashable. “We’re helping retailers simplify login and account creation to help increase conversion and loyalty on merchants’ websites.”
To implement the product, PayPal has turned to Gigya and Janrain as partners. Gigya will be offering the PayPal Access API to its nearly 500 enterprise clients through its Social Login product, while Janrain will offer the API through its social checkin platform.
“Identity is going to play a huge part of how users interact on the web outside of their core social networks, and PayPal Access helps bring that vision to life,” a Gigya spokesperson told Mashable. “For retailers, we think it could have a major impact on reducing shopping cart abandonment because shoppers will only need to login once in order to go through the checkout flow.”
The product has a few big hurdles to overcome, though. Its biggest challenge will be convincing retailers that they should implement PayPal Access in addition (or instead of) a traditional user registration system. While PayPal Access reduces the friction towards a purchase, retailers won’t have as much access or control over those user accounts. It’s an issue many online retailers will have to ponder as PayPal gains steam as the web’s most prominent payment solution.
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