eBay’s annual regulatory filings point out Bitcoin processors as competition for payment platform PayPal.
eBay recently filed its annual regulatory reports to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. While eBay’s report in a whole is nothing too interesting for the general public to take notice, the latest report’s section on payment subsidiary PayPal is something more of interest to online consumers and the Bitcoin community in particular.
The report shows what eBay Inc. feels is direct competition to its payment platform. According to the report PayPal’s competition consists of digital wallets, payment card processors, payment solutions like Amazon payments, mobile payment services, mobile card readers, as well as multi-channel point-of-sale solutions. Not only merchant payment solutions were mentioned, but also remittance service providers, online bill payment firms, miscellaneous payment solutions, and digital currencies.
eBay pointed out BitPay and Coinbase by name as “services that help merchants accept and manage digital currencies such as Bitcoin.”
Having listed Bitcoin and digital currencies as competition does not mean eBay believes Bitcoin is a threat, but it does mean it is no longer sees it as a niche topic. PayPal’s daily transactions dwarfs those of Bitcoin’s, and with over 250,000 users and 26 supported currencies it is one of the largest payment service providers in the world.
One aspect going against PayPal as opposed to Bitcoin is the fees. PayPal currently offers a 2.9% + $0.30 for every transaction placed. When looking at micropayments ($1-$10) these fees can account up to a large percentage of the amount of the transaction. Bitcoin’s low to no fees fee structure is one of its stronger selling points, and small to large firms are beginning to take notice.
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