Parts of their business don't have much network effect, and competitors could totally rebuild the tech and eat away at the market share... Yet somehow that hasn't happened.
From my northwestern European perspective, it's weird this straightforward solution that we've had since, well, the fifties? is overlooked.
Being able to send money to someone just knowing their phone number is the real value-add.
It's MobilePay in Denmark and Finland, Vipps in Norway, Swish in Sweden, PayM in Britain, etc.
For example, we split a restaurant bill at the weekend. In roughly the time it took one person to pay the whole bill on a card, the rest of us had sent ¼ each to her using her phone number. There are no fees for this.
In the next year or two, this should start to work internationally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System...
In the era of ubiquitous smartphone usage, nobody needs to memorize bank account numbers.
But even 15 years ago I would copy/paste my IBAN into an email.
Buyer protection has rarely been something one needs. Some (many nowadays?) banks offer insurance for this.
I disagree, I think it is the biggest factor. I used it several times and I know other people who have too.
>you can't (easily) charge back already effectuated transfer
I promise if you try to do something involving bank transfers without doing some form of 'Know Your Customer' you'll get people try to use bank accounts that are compromised in some way. You'll be getting calls from your bank and potentially lose money, and may get your bank account closed if you persist with that behavior
You probably think that because of the insecure nature of the alternatives you're familiar with. It simply doesn't occur that much, fraud, and when it does, the recourse options you have seem to work. Take a closer look!
> KYC
Yes, and this has increased over the past few years. An account number can't be private, in fact, many banks double check the name of the owner before they let you transfer (they'll show you the mismatching name).
Here in Australia we’re constantly warned not to transfer money direct to sellers bank account as there’s pretty much no way you’ll get your money back if the goods don’t arrive, and there’s not much the police will do for small value transactions.
It's just not something that comes up. The number of such stories I read on here/through Anglo-Saxon sources far outnumbers the number of local problems. Fewer shady sellers, perhaps?
To your question: although not as easy as a charge back, banks let you appeal. Some (perhaps many now) also offer cheap or free 30/90/365 day purchase insurance.
Also, for small value transactions there's a special legal channel.
Also, in the US, credit card providers accept all liability for fraud, as a consumer there's no way you will ever lose money to credit card fraud.
- In DE at there are fast "instant" payments called paydirekt or giropay, which make "checkout" using your giro account fast and simply. However, it's debit again. Balls grabbed.
- Your checking account usually receives your salary, and you have to monitor it for fraudulent charges, which can just "happen" if somebody knows your IBAN. Therefore, entering my IBAN on any site that is not 100% trustworthy and liable is a no-go.
Debit is really bad for buyer's protection, and even when using "reverse debit" which means authorizing a party to draw money from your giro account, you in theory can reverse such charges, but the reversals are handled by your home bank and in many cases the reversal is getting rejected based on intransparent reasons or takes _very_ long. Customer service is simply bad at banks.
So what about credit card processors like Stripe?
- German credit cards are issued largely by banks in the visa/mastercard system. That means the banks themselves are responsible for accepting or rejecting chargebacks. Bad customer service by banks again, very high burden of proof => high chance of chargeback not going through, paper tiger wars.
- Most merchants have really shitty payment gateways in place or even store credit card information on site. The smaller the business, the shittier the storage and you can basically guarantee that data protection is effectively handled at most SMB like trash. => I do not enter my main credit card info on random sites.
So what does Paypal offer?
- almost no questions asked chargeback of any amount if you return the goods (proof = shipping label) - masks credit card number IBAN and other information from merchant
That's it. I'm ok paying small amounts using direct debit but expensive purchases, like electronics, gardening equipment and so on, go through either (a) Amazon w/ its no-fullshit refund policy (b) a merchant offering PayPal. PayPal is expensive, but customer friendly. Germany has _no_ true competitor to PayPal's service except notarized escrow, and I don't want to lawyer up just to buy a lawn mower.
Basically you can demand a refund and if they don't give it to you it is a really simple process of just sending a bill to that company for your money and initiate bankruptcy process if they fail to pay.
The product when returned still has to be in a state that it can be sold.
This also means that lot of people pointing out Amazons very liberal return policy being a good reason to shop there makes no sense here. We got roughly the same return policy for all online shopping. And as others pointed out EU regulations give 14day return policy for all online shopping.
More often than not sites will get different prices based on the transaction volume, so having a number of small minor payment options is of little benefit, except for very specific cases like Alipay.
Then if volume is transaction an important consideration, going with the market leader is the most reasonable choice.
I'd assume that's the logic Nintendo applied for its online store for instance, making PayPal the only alternative option to standard payment systems.
Contrasting with social — if I want to message all my friends about a housewarming party, Mastedon might be my preferred platform & I might hate FB/WhatsApp, but if none of my friends actually _use_ Mastedon I'm out of luck. I have to talk with my friends somewhere that they can receive the message.
Whereas if a merchant offers me payment options of MasterCard, Amex or PayPal online, there's no additional pull towards PayPal because all my friends use it.