PayPal.me pushes to further simplify retail transactions

The rapid growth of e-commerce and social media has made Thailand the number one user of PayPal.me in Southeast Asia.

PayPal.me is the latest feature of digital payment platform PayPal to support the growth of social commerce that offers secure and more convenient ways for people to send and manage money online, according to Somwang Luangphaiboonsri, country lead of PayPal Thailand.

With PayPal.me, independent retailers and merchants do not need to send manual payment requests or bank account numbers. The merchant can set up a user profile associated with a personalised URL to receive international or cross-border commercial payments with their existing PayPal account.

For those who already have a PayPal account, Mr Somwang said they can just create personal PayPal.me profiles linked with their accounts and share the link with the amount appended with their customers to request payment. Customers can then click the link, log in and complete the payment.

“The entire transaction takes less than one minute,” he said, adding that users can customise the link, the logo and add whatever details they want. The service is described as a simple, fast and personal way for freelancers, social sellers and small businesses to request money from anyone across the globe and get paid with the click of a link.

Though it has not officially been introduced in Thailand yet, more than 54,000 PayPal.me accounts have been created since the feature became available in July last year, and the volume of money transfers via this channel is expected to grow tremendously.

Mr Somwang noted that the rise of e-commerce and the increasing mobile penetration is transforming the retail industry and resulting in increasing numbers of consumers making purchases through social media platforms.

“Compared with Line, Facebook Messenger or any instant messaging or social media platform, PayPal.me offers a quicker and safer way for merchants to receive payments,” said Somwang, adding that the features allow for automatic fraud screening, real-time transaction monitoring and robust protection policies.

In the global market, there are some 203 million PayPal accounts, 16 million of them retailers.

The company refused to specify the value of business transactions on PayPal, but said that US$11,000 (374,000 baht) is transacted every second via PayPal globally.

In Southeast Asia, it is estimated that some 30% of digital sales take place via social networks and the trend continues to move upwards. PayPal did not disclose the numbers of accounts in Thailand, but noted that the number of active accounts grew 16% from 2015 to 2016.

Retail shops are required to pay a fee of 4.4% plus 11 baht per transaction when receiving overseas payments, and 3.9% plus 11 baht per transaction for local payments.

Thai Airways, Centara Hotel Group, Centre Point and Agoda are among Thai businesses already utilising PayPal’s digital payment services.