PayPal Expands Digital Wallet Inking New Deal with Discover Card

PayPal's digital wallet will be available to any merchant who accepts Discover Card starting in 2013.

PayPal furthered its digital wallet ambitions by making a deal with Discover, announced today, that will make PayPal's wallet a payment option at any store that accepts Discover cards. The deal will bring PayPal to millions of in-store locations in 2013, Don Kingsborough, vice president of Retail and Prepaid Products, wrote on PayPal's blog.

In the past year PayPal has made deals with a number of big name retailers like Home Depot and Abercrombie & Fitch to allow payments with PayPal's digital wallet in their locations. Kingsborough said that the Discover deal will build on those previous efforts, adding that bringing the digital wallet to so many new locations will allow PayPal to innovate at scale.

Merchants who accept Discover cards won't have to add any new hardware or software at their point of sale to enable the digital wallet, Kingsborough said.

For Discover this new deal comes just a few days after announcing that its cardholders will be able to save their credit card directly into Google Wallet through Discover's Account Center. That will allow cardholders to tap and pay at the point of sale using the Google Wallet application and make online purchases while still earning their usual Discover rewards, according to a statement by Discover.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio