PayPal extends in-store reach with Discover

NEW ORLEANS — Discover has signed contracts with 50 merchant acquirers that will extend PayPal’s in-store acceptance to more than 2 million merchant outlets by the end of the year.

Eight months ago, PayPal announced its intention to create an innovative payment option that leveraged Discover’s payments infrastructure to provide PayPal’s more than 55 million active domestic account holders with access to millions of retail stores, restaurants and gas pumps.

“With the signing of 50 merchant acquirers to date, we are well on our way toward helping PayPal reach its goals of acceptance at millions of physical locations in the U.S.,” said Diane Offereins, president of payment services at Discover. “Our relationship represents the unique abilities we have to leverage our payments assets and infrastructure to work with emerging payments leaders like PayPal, and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made in such a short time.”

“With Discover’s help we are poised to grow from the 250,000 retailers who accept PayPal in-store today to more than 2 million by the end of 2013,” said Don Kingsborough, VP of retail services at PayPal. “As consumers continue to use technology to shop in new and exciting ways, we will continue to collaborate with Discover’s acquirer partners to support the growing needs of their merchants.”

Merchant acquirers and processors that have already committed to offering PayPal include Vantiv, WorldPay, Global Payments, First American Payments, Heartland Payment Systems and TSYS.

“We are proud to have given our business owners the opportunity to be the first merchants nationwide to let consumers use PayPal in stores,” said Tony Catalfano, president and CEO of WorldPay U.S. “With the expanded acceptance options, our merchants are able to offer more payment choices for their customers, create better opportunities for engaging customers, help increase sales, and solve problems to make their customers’ experience better.”