PayPal arrives on the UK high street – shopping goes mobile

30 May 2012

PayPal has arrived on the UK high street and shoppers at stores like Oasis, Warehouse and Karen Millen will be able to buy clothes with their smartphones.

According to PayPal, the service will be launched nationally across the UK tomorrow, 31 May, and will be available across 230 stores.

“The PayPal inStore app, available for Android and Apple iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices, brings the flexibility of online shopping to the high street,” said John Bishop, innovation comms manager at PayPal.

“If you want to use your mobile to pay for your new summer outfit, our app simply generates a unique barcode and transaction number, which the shop cashier scans to take payment from your PayPal account. It even works when there is no mobile or Wi-Fi signal,” Bishop explained.

Bishop said safety and security are at the heart of the mobile payments technology.

“You unlock the application with a unique PIN number, and no personal or financial information, or money, is stored on your phone,” he said.

According to a Gartner report yesterday, the number of mobile payment users in the world will reach 212.12m, up from 160m last year, and mobile transaction values will reach US$171.5bn – up 62pc on last year.

Watch a PayPal/Oasis video showing the mobile app at work here:

 

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com