In June this year, Skype introduced a major redesign for its Android and iOS apps that were “rebuilt from the ground up,” adding many features; among them was support for new add-ins that integrate services like Giphy and YouTube into the Skype interface itself. At the time, the company promised that it would continue to add support for more add-ins to make the "Skype experience even more rich and robust."
Today, Skype is introducing PayPal support to its Android and iOS apps via an add-in, to facilitate peer-to-peer payments in 22 countries across North America and Europe.
Here’s the complete list of countries where the feature is enabled starting from today:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Cyprus
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- The Netherlands
- Portugal
- San Marino
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- United States
- United Kingdom
Those who wish to try the feature will require the latest version of Skype’s app on Android or iOS; once updated, they can tap on the ‘Find’ tab at the top while in a conversation, and select the ‘Send Money’ add-in. Skype will ask users to link their PayPal account with their Skype profile when they use the feature for the first time.
It’s worth noting that this integration is strictly about sending money to friends and family, and not businesses. PayPal’s rates remain the same as on other platforms but do vary by country.
Skype says that this is the first time it has integrated with PayPal for peer-to-peer payments on mobile; while that is true, Skype has integrated with PayPal for the same feature in 2007, but only on the desktop.
Amazon is reportedly working on its very own messaging service, while WhatsApp is adding peer-to-peer payments support for users in India. It seems that competition among messaging services is only going to get tougher, but services like PayPal are likely to benefit the most.
Source: Skype via TechCrunch