Apple officials hope their new payment system will revolutionize the way people pay in apps and at stores, and that could cause some hardship for the world’s currently largest digital payment network, PayPal. On top of letting people pay in stores, Apple Pay will let people circumvent the annoyance of having to go to a third-party digital payment site (PayPal) when buying something from within an app. Instead, they’ll be able to use their debit or credit card kept on file with the App Store or iTunes.
As if that wasn’t enough, Apple’s initial published list of “highly recommended” payment partners that can process Apple Pay purchases for app publishers doesn’t include Braintree, which is PayPal’s new payments processing unit for iOS apps. Braintree made an announcement after that saying that it will help apps that use its platform integrate with Apple Pay. In other words, users could see both a PayPal button and an Apple Pay button.
Braintree CEO Bill Ready said that people sign up for PayPal for reasons other than just buying things, like sending friends and family money and buying things on eBay, so the company isn’t concerned.
