Over 200,000 Merchants sign up for PayPal here

    

During eBay’s earnings call today, eBay CEO and President John Donahoe said that over 200,000 merchants have signed up for PayPal Here, the company’s Square-like mobile payments hardware and software platform for small businesses. 

PayPal Here offers a triangular add-on that plugs into the headphone jack onto a smartphone. Merchants can then accept payments by swiping cards with the thumb-sized card reader or can use the smartphone’s camera to scan credit cards (powered by Card.io), scan checks, etc. PayPal Here offers a flat rate of 2.7 percent for card swipes.
Donahoe says the reader will launch to the public in the second quarter, and will be available in the US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia at launch. He adds that he’s not sure they can manufacture enough PayPal Here devices to keep up for demand.

By December 2011. over 1 million merchants were using Square to accept credit cards.

Donahoe also said during the call that eBay would be improving the marketplace checkout experience, search and discovery on the platform. With regard to NFC, Donahoe says that it will be at least a couple of years before NFC is adopted at large retailers.

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