Dive Brief:
- Digital payments pioneer PayPal has deepened its partnership with Microsoft to expand the ways in which consumers can use PayPal tools to pay for products and services sold by the software giant.
- In a press release issued Wednesday, PayPal said that Microsoft customers in U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, France, Spain and Italy will now be able to use its buy now, pay later payment option called PayPal Pay Later.
- In addition, U.S. consumers will “soon” have the option to use PayPal’s Venmo payment tool to pay for goods and services purchased at Microsoft, extending an existing relationship limited to Xbox purchases, the PayPal release said.
Dive Insight:
The extension of the 16-year PayPal-Microsoft partnership comes as PayPal seeks to jump-start consumer adoption of its payment tools despite sluggish economic growth in the U.S. and elsewhere. It’s vying to boost customer engagement as competition to service consumers digital payment alternatives rises.
“These new integrations offer customers more flexible ways to pay and help increase customer loyalty,” PayPal said in the release.
The renewed pact means that Microsoft will migrate onto PayPal’s platform operated by its Braintree unit, where the PayPal Pay Later and Venmo checkout options will be available, a spokesperson for PayPal said in an email. The Braintree unit has been driving much of PayPal’s growth, the company has said.
San Jose, California-based PayPal is also preparing for new leadership. The company said last year that CEO Dan Schulman would step down from that role by the end of this year, but it hasn’t announced a successor yet. Some investors have called on the company to make that change happen sooner rather than later. The company currently also is operating with an interim CFO.
PayPal is scheduled to report its second-quarter financial results on Aug. 2.
