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The Almighty Buck The Internet Technology

PayPal Predicts the End of the Wallet By 2015 391

BogenDorpher writes "As new technology emerges, one can safely assume that the days of carrying a wallet will soon end. In fact, PayPal believes that by the year 2015, no one will be carrying a wallet anymore. Instead, mobile payment methods will be taking over."
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PayPal Predicts the End of the Wallet By 2015

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  • I hope that.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:16PM (#36700280)

    The broker for those payments isn't PayPal, what a horrible company.

    • Re:I hope that.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:44PM (#36700564) Homepage Journal

      The broker for those payments isn't PayPal, what a horrible company.

      They are idiots, run by the same idiot philosophy which drives eBay - almost no customer service.

      • Re:I hope that.. (Score:4, Informative)

        by JDeane ( 1402533 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:53PM (#36700676) Journal

        I agree, I have used PayPal exactly 1 time. I honestly wish I had not. At the end of the day it proved to be a $700+ lesson.

        The fraud protection is a fraud...

        I am sure that people use PayPal all day long and never have a problem, but if the party on the other end of the payment is not legit forget about your money, your better off with a credit card at least then you can dispute the charges and get some results.

        • Re:I hope that.. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08, 2011 @06:20PM (#36700918)

          same thing happened to me. their arbitrator sided with the seller who sold counterfeit and defective dvds to me, and whose account had been disabled by ebay. but they sided with the seller. burden of proof was on me to find an industry expert to certify that the dvds i received was actually counterfeit. they just didn't want to return my money because they knew they would not get it from the seller. that's paypal's fraud protection -- to themselves.

      • Re:I hope that.. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @07:15PM (#36701334) Journal
        "They are idiots, run by the same idiot philosophy which drives eBay - almost no customer service."

        Not true anymore. Call Paypal at 1-888-221-1161 and see how long it takes to get a real-live person on the phone. I've never waited more than a minute. Wish I could say the same about my ISP, gas and electric. Even my credit union takes longer to answer.

        I've had over 4,000 transactions through Paypal in the past 24 months and only 3 issues, none of them so major that I would stop using them. Did have some issues 10 years ago but they're much better now, probably because they've changed how they operate after several lawsuits. [wikipedia.org]
  • Wallet != Money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:18PM (#36700288)

    Wallets aren't only used to carry money or credit cards.

    • Easily nitpicked sound-bites serve ads.

    • Wallets aren't only used to carry money or credit cards.

      Right. It's a ridiculous statement on the surface, and the concept of everyone using mobile payments is also ridiculous. My mom won't use a debit card, and refuses to purchase anything online. She also uses a basic phone with almost no features. Unless he's planning on knocking my mom off in the next four years, his prediction isn't going to come true.

      • by iamhassi ( 659463 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @07:29PM (#36701416) Journal
        So your mom walks around with large wads of cash in her purse? Where is she right now?
        • Re:Wallet != Money (Score:5, Informative)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @07:47PM (#36701518)

          You haven't been to Europe have you? It's a place where debit and credit cards and not accepted at every corner store for purchasing a mars bar. Even here in Australia many stores won't let you use a payment system which requires commission such as a credit card without a minimum purchase, and even for large purchases will charge a surcharge for Amex or DinersClub. I typically carry around $100 in my wallet. My cousin in Europe carries around 600euro and this is considered normal.

          • by 1s44c ( 552956 )

            You haven't been to Europe have you? It's a place where debit and credit cards and not accepted at every corner store for purchasing a mars bar. Even here in Australia many stores won't let you use a payment system which requires commission such as a credit card without a minimum purchase, and even for large purchases will charge a surcharge for Amex or DinersClub. I typically carry around $100 in my wallet. My cousin in Europe carries around 600euro and this is considered normal.

            In the UK you can use credit or debt cards for just about any purchase, Small stores sometimes get pissy about it though. In the Netherlands it's very common to use debt cards to buy a sandwich or a bottle of cola. It's certainly not common to carry around more than about 100 Euros here, 600 sounds like asking for trouble. I don't know where in Europe your cousin is though, things vary a lot from country to country.

    • Exactly. Where am I supposed to keep the papers that the govt will supposedly make me produce on a whim?
      • by Ceiynt ( 993620 )
        I hope you keep a second wallet to hold the papers proving the first papers are your papers.
    • Agreed. I have not used my wallet to carry cash in 20 years. Yes, 20 years. My wallet has my drivers license and other various forms of ID, several credit cards, business cards and membership rewards cards like movie theater, etc. I don't foresee all of that vanishing in 3.5 years.

      In fact my business only accepts credit cards or electronic checks and I'm still shocked how many customers ask to pay with cash.

      Maybe they meant 2025. That seems far more realistic.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 )
      And more important, a wallet doesn't charge a transaction fee to anyone. On the internet, content is king - everywhere else it's cash.

      Wallets also carry bank cards, ID cards, drivers licenses, bus and subway tickets, all sorts of other cards (and credit, store, and gas cards WANT you to see their logo every time you pull it out).

      What next - "Paypal predicts the end of the purse by 2020?"

      Paypal will disappear long before wallets do.

  • it starts off:

    As new technology emerges, one can safely assume that the days of carrying a wallet will soon end.

    control-w.

    who greenlighted this crap??

  • by Mitchell314 ( 1576581 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:20PM (#36700308)
    Nice. It's a good thing I only use my wallet for cash, and not frivolous other stuff like a driver's license.
    • Well, if a mobile phone can be your boarding pass for a plane, there's no real reason it couldn't be a driver's license, too. Instead of a magnetic strip it could have a bar code which would reflect a real-time, signed stamp of authenticity from the DMV's servers, which code could be read by a cop's mobile device and verified. Between that and doing a visual validation of the embedded picture, you've got something that's every bit as good as a printed license.

      Maybe better; someone might loan their youn
      • So what happens when you get stopped and your cellphone isn't charged? Just saying, there are advantages to physical tokens.

      • for driving without a charged battery?

        And the state is going to issue you your "smart device" and coincidentally reserve the right to regularly download everything on it to their servers?

        And the state is going to supply homeless people with electricity and chargers for their devices because they also enforce "no existing in public without a state-issued ID" laws.

        And the state is going to mandate DRM in all those smart devices so that nobody can display a "fake ID".

        And its _all_ going to be universally in pl

      • As much as it pains a geek like me to say this, I still must note that just because something can be digitalized doesn't mean it should. As posted in sister replies below/above me, this brings up many serious issues, like running out of battery power.
      • by krotkruton ( 967718 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @06:29PM (#36700982)
        When they figure out a way to put a condom in a mobile phone, then the wallet will be obsolete.
        • by rickkw ( 920898 )
          Thinking outside of the box -- why put condom inside a mobile phone? Put your mobile phone inside layers of condoms. just peel one off each time you need one. as a side benefit, it makes your phone instantly waterproof.
      • Mobile phones don't last that long, and it's a hassle to replace. What we really need is a bar code tatooed on people's foreheads at birth. That way, they don't need to carry anything in their pockets (*)

        (*) Except for a barcode scanner, so one can identify the people one meets.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This will work oso well in rural areas with sketchy, if not non-existent, data service.

        And forget about any dead-battery issues. Or your phone just being bricked because you dropped it in the toilet at the last rest stop.

        Heavens! What if the cop wanted to physically take your license? What if read your messages? Or perused your address book? No potential problems there, nosiree!

        Sorry. A cell phone is just too darn fragile to rely on for important ID. It's also too fragile for sole use as a wallet. D

  • Not until... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by p0p0 ( 1841106 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:21PM (#36700312)
    ... they are certified as a bank, and are required to offer the same protections and liabilities as one. I've never had problems with PayPal, but I've heard horror stories of lost money and account freezes with no real hope on recovering what you lost.
    • Re:Not until... (Score:5, Informative)

      by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:34PM (#36700454)

      "Not until ...... they are certified as a bank,"

      Rejoice then.

      "Commencing July 2, 2007, as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A., PayPal moved its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg. As a Luxembourg entity, it is since regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) and provides PayPal service throughout the European Union."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Bank_status [wikipedia.org]

      • Re:Not until... (Score:5, Informative)

        by BenoitRen ( 998927 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @06:09PM (#36700832)

        That's only in Europe. They still aren't a bank in the USA, as the article you linked points out.

      • by rsborg ( 111459 )

        "Not until ...... they are certified as a bank,"

        Rejoice then.

        "Commencing July 2, 2007, as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A., PayPal moved its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg. As a Luxembourg entity, it is since regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) and provides PayPal service throughout the European Union."

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Bank_status [wikipedia.org]

        Well, well... I wonder when are they going to get certified in the USA?

  • by liquidweaver ( 1988660 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:21PM (#36700314)
    Every conversation I've had recently about Paypal was a.) Brought up by the person I was talking with, not me b.) revolved around how much they hated PayPal, and would rather write transfer/check/trade sheep anything but use them again.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by MindStalker ( 22827 )

        Actually you got burned by the other buyer/seller. I've used paypal for 3 years now to accept payment from clients for independent web programming. I only do business with people I trust and never had any clients attempt to charge back from me. So for me paypal has been fine, the have never been a problem at all. //I also use the paypal debit card, and not put the money into my bank so paypal can't hold payments from my bank, just from my attempted ATM withdrawls I guess, though they have never done so.

        • But you work for them. I don't believe anything you say about PayPal.

        • You can also do that with a CC, the upside being that the CC company has a lot more pull than you do if there's a problem on the account. If they fail to deliver the money as promised or refund it you can report them to the CC company for fraud and have the CC company issue a charge back. Which under the circumstances would be the right thing to do considering that most people don't give PayPal money just to keep. And nobody in their right minds keeps money in a PayPal account.

      • I sold something for about $1000 on Paypal a few months ago. I kept the money in paypal in case I had to do a return thinking it was the honest thing to do. Ended up doing a return later, and the return took the money from my bank account instead of paypal. The timing was so that I had no money for anything for 4 days because they emptied out my bank account. I also happened to have no gas or food in the fridge. The paypal fuckers can die in hell. Do not touch paypal people. Ebay is just about as bad

  • Not a chance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schnikies79 ( 788746 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:21PM (#36700318)

    Not if PayPal is the middle-man.

  • Cash will ALWAYS exist. Whether out of the desire for anonymity, the convenience or the underground economy.
  • Isn't a traditional wallet a 'mobile payment method'?
  • by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:22PM (#36700336) Homepage Journal
    instead of wallets, he thinks everyone will be carrying man-purses like him by 2015
  • by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:23PM (#36700342)

    no one respects paypal, no one trusts them. they won't come clean and be a proper bank (and I use the term 'proper' very loosely).

    who the hell cares what some microblog says about what paypal thinks? news flash: greedy ceo's dream of taking over the world. film at 11.

    crap article to create panic (and page refreshes). this really should have been filtered, slashies.... please do a better job picking the greenlit articles next time.

    • My first reaction was 'haahahahaha!".

      "They" predicted that the internet would mean the end of books, yet sales are in record territory. "They" predicted that computers would foster the "paperless office"....yeah, how is that working for you? "They" predicted that the war on drugs would reduce usage and addiction. "They" is about the dumbest son of a bitch I have ever met.

      Many, many, MANY people who make less than you and I will continue to carry a wallet for decades to come. In part because many people w

    • Greece, Iceland, Slovakia, Spain, and a number of other countries, millions no longer need to carry a wallet, since they no longer have any cash.
  • Yep, an my employer will still require receipts for expense reports. Now it 2015 wallets will be gone and I will have to carry a damn man purse.

    Better buy a stock of wallets to have a supply after 2015.

  • by SoundGuyNoise ( 864550 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:24PM (#36700362) Homepage
    You're on line at the supermarket, and the little old lady in front of you with her eggs and cheese is asked for her loyalty/discount card. Do you think she'll be faster pulling out a piece of plastic, or navigating through her mobile phone from menu to menu to app to option? And the same again if she's paying by credit card.

    Credit/debit payments are gaining a foothold, but it's going to be a loooooong time until we even consider a cashless society.

    And there's few things more enjoyable than giving real cash to a little niece or nephew.
    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      If ti's anything like my mobile phone, she will just need to hold it up against the scanner on the 'card swipe'. She won't have to go looking for anything.

      Giving fake cash to a niece and nephew and watching them realize it's not a real 100 is even more enjoyable~

    • Instead of PayPal.. I think the mobile phone payment system may get some traction. Even vending machines at work have that option now.

      If you are one to give any credence to biblical prophecies, the chip in the cell phone will be moved where it can't be lost of stolen. It will be placed in the hand or forehead. After cash no longer exists, nobody will be able to buy or sell without the ID. It will be referred to as the mark of the beast.
      http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/22/tech/main631231.shtml [cbsnews.com]
      Vendi

    • The only way this would happen is if the phone uses NFC and they just have to swipe the phone to a reader without 'unlocking' the device or navigating windows. The communications would then automatically agree on the loyalty card discount and payment info without user interaction. The screen at the reader would then show a simple confirm or deny dialog (no signature, the phone will provide a digital signature) and a receipt will be sent to the phone.

    • I'm guessing the phone, mainly because as people age the technological knowledge tends to increase. There's still a deficit, but my grandmother can do far more with a computer than your average person could 20 years ago.

  • in a wallet, and I dont have a wallet.
    I must be from the future, where ppl carry dont have wallets.

    I am sry, but what kind of forecast is this!!

  • Good thing (Score:2, Informative)

    by pjbgravely ( 751384 )
    It's a good thing I use a money clip then. I will never have anything to do with Paypal, in fact I no longer buy anything on ebay becouse everything seems to be Paypal only.
  • by taustin ( 171655 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:29PM (#36700422) Homepage Journal

    That PayPal will become the indispensable service without which, you will die, your children will be eaten by wild animals, and hellfire will rain down from the heavens.

    Are they planning an IPO or something?

  • In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BinarySolo ( 1951210 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:30PM (#36700426)
    Maker of a technology predicts said technology will become ubiquitous.
    • by mevets ( 322601 )

      Amazing, isn't it. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been if they paid for a comprehensive study and it showed the opposite? It would be, like, so I guess we don't have much of a future in this line of business.....

      That is one of the efficiencies of business - they knew the risk of a study giving the wrong result; so they saved money on studying the issue and went with a simple marketing campaign.

  • Wallets predict the end of PayPal by Square (and any other credit card processors who make it easier to accept credit cards than deal with PayPal's nightmareishness).
  • by tompaulco ( 629533 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:34PM (#36700462) Homepage Journal
    Wallet believes that by the year 2015, no one will be using Paypal anymore.
  • Bull (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BlueCoder ( 223005 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:35PM (#36700474)

    Never Gonna Happen

    The illegal market depends on cash too much. If they took away cash people would start carrying around platinum, gold, silver and copper coins again as well as having funds deposited in foreign currency and the US government won't let that happen. China will go paperless long before the US does.

    • Re:Bull (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bmajik ( 96670 ) <matt@mattevans.org> on Friday July 08, 2011 @11:36PM (#36702438) Homepage Journal

      The size of the illegal market will also continue to increase, as more things will become illegal.

      But heck, I like using cash when I'm _not_ doing anything knowingly illegal. Sometimes you just want to fork over some money and be anonymous. No, I don't want you to add this item to my profile. No, I don't want to sign anything. No, I don't want to transfer enough of my identity to you that you can buy things "on my behalf" after your shfit ends. No, you can't have my phone number. No, you can't have my zip code. No, I don't have email. Give me my fucking $item and stop asking questions.

  • by copponex ( 13876 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @05:38PM (#36700500) Homepage

    You can't buy sex or drugs and keep it a secret without cash. Good luck.

  • Yea, because everyone has a mobile phone that has mobile payment application abilities, and nobody carries their drivers licence, library card, business cards, insurance cards, personal photos, etc. Dumbasses.

  • Condoms.

  • I still need my DL.
    That said, I would love to only need it for that. In fact, I would love to not need a wallet at all and have it all in my smart phones.

  • Given the existing weak links in the electronic retail financial chain, and the added weak link of a cell phone, I suspect wallets will make a big come back after a goodly fraction of the mobile payment system users get their checking account cleaned out and/or their debit account treated as someone else's personal piggybank.

    • Or, you know, the fact that many elderly folks don't have a cell phone and don't want a cell phone. Grandma stinerman isn't going to one day wake up on Jan 1, 2005 and start paying her grocery bill by iPhone.

  • So I have 4 years to buy a cellphone, huh? D: It's a good thing I don't use my wallet for identification or anything!

  • Criminals will not want to use e-money, but I think a lot of people will get creeped out when they buy something, and 10 seconds later they are texted a coupon for a store next door, for something they were Googling about last week. Don't get me wrong - some people will absolutely love that. But not everyone will. I wouldn't, which is why I intend to keep carrying cash.

  • Wishful thinking is the driving force of e-commerce.

  • My credit card and cash don't require internet access nor batteries to work.

  • Has Netcraft confirmed this?
  • I may look like a bum, but I'm really a wealthy man. It's just that my battery ran down, and I have no way to get my money. Please, please help me.

    More seriously, I bicycle to places with no cell phone service all the time. I am not going to rely on online services for everything.

  • Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that PayPal hopes nobody will carry a wallet by 2015.

    Unless pot is legal in 2015, I'll still need cash.

  • Until they make some means of verifying ID via your iPhone, a wallet still has a place in anyone's pocket. My 7 year old Mythware wallet, which proclaims, "Anime: Crack is Cheaper" is a trooper and I won't be getting rid of it until it disintegrates.
  • I expect to live longer than that.

  • "Cash is king."
  • I don't want to carry a wallet. There is no room for it in my flying car. Now, let be go out to the warehouse out back and see if I can replace some tubes in my massive computer.
  • Reading between the lines, I'd say PayPal has plans to develop a digital condom.

    • Reading between the lines, I'd say PayPal has plans to develop a digital condom.

      heh - they are already screwing their customers....

      (obvious?)

  • To keep my e-banking card in.
  • by Rizimar ( 1986164 ) on Friday July 08, 2011 @09:53PM (#36702046) Homepage

    It appears that you're trying to spend your money to buy a Snickers from this PayPal vending machine. Unfortunately, we've recently detected someone trying to hack into your account. Please prove that you're you by tying PayPal to your bank account, and then transfer $50 to us which we will refund in your PayPal account.

    It appears that you're trying to purchase a new t-shirt at the PayPal store. While you've tied your bank account to us, we've recently detected someone trying to hack into your account. Please prove that you're you by giving us your social security number which we won't use for anything other than your identification. We swear.

    It appears that you're not spending any money with your PayPal app on your phone today. We have detected that you may be deceased. Please prove that you're still alive by calling our toll-free 1-800 number from 9 to 5 PM Central. But only after transferring $50 from your bank account to us, which we'll refund in your PayPal account.

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