PayPal Makes Mobile Payments Easier With New Card Capture And Local Enhancements
July 5, 2012
The eBay-owned e-commerce website PayPal continues to improve its service for its iDevice-using customers with a new update to its official iOS client.
Launched way back in August 2008, the PayPal app for iOS has since provided a convenient way to check and manage my PayPal account on the go. Although it's currently optimized for iPhone only, the app enjoys a permanent spot on my iPad as well as on my iPhone.
Already a decent and functional app at launch, PayPal for iOS underwent an excellent redesign last March. This coincided with the launch of its credit card processing service PayPal Here, which, in turn, led to the relaunch of PayPal Local in the app.
PayPal Local helps you find local merchants that use PayPal Here and lets you pay them with PayPal. The app's latest update promises to make this feature better with an improved check-in experience.
In line with this, a new Profile section is also introduced by the update. The new section lets you manage your payment preferences for PayPal Local establishments.
To be sure, though, the update is not entirely PayPal Local-centric. It brings a couple of other changes that are not necessarily tied with the app's location-based feature.
The update also allows you to add a credit or debit card to your account just by taking a picture of your card. This new feature of PayPal is similar to an older one that lets you add a check with a simple snapshot.
Supposedly, the update also includes an omnipresent available balance display. But, going through my updated PayPal app, I find that my available balance is not shown throughout the app. Either way, the piece of information in question is not at all elusive within the app, accessible as it is with just a tap on the Account tab.
PayPal for iOS — or, specifically, for iPhone —is available in the App Store for free.
I'm glad that the PayPal app has once again been enhanced, especially since, quite frankly, my cash inflow depends on it.
