PayPal's mPOS (mobile point-of-sale) solution is extending its capabilities to Windows devices. Previously the company's PayPal Here solution, aimed at providing small businesses with a flexible way to provide mPOS, was only available on iOS and Android devices. Now Microsoft's tablets, running Windows 8, can provide the same experience. On top of that PayPal have released SDK's for developers to provide added services and features for the PayPal Here experience.
Brad Brodigan, vice president of retail at PayPal, told Mobile Payments Today:
"To me, the most important piece [of the mPOS market] is to provide solutions that are flexible enough to meet the needs of all types of merchants, and that's why this partnership with Microsoft is so important for us. Not only are we providing the PayPal application on the Windows network, but we're also providing the PayPal Here SDK to the developer network to create customized services."
Brodigan, expanding on what could be done with the SDKs, hit upon what is becoming clearer and clearer in the race to provide mobile payments, predicting that loyalty and a curated experience will play a major factor in marketing and driving mobile payment adoption, perhaps only second to security. He said:
"The most important piece [of mobile payments] is loyalty. If you implement that type of loyalty in smart interaction environment, it's incredibly powerful. It's all about differentiating the experience, knowing who your customer is and getting to know them in a better way, and then acquiring and retaining customers better than your competition. That's the promise of mobile payments."
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