BALTIMORE — PayPal announced Tuesday a large rollout of person-to-person services aimed at giving credit unions and banks state-of-the art money transfer tools, at prices “less than half of what our competitors charge,” said Dan Schatt, head of financial innovations at PayPal in an exclusive interview with Credit Union Times at the NACHA conference in Baltimore.

In its announcement, PayPal unveiled a new partnership with The Bancorp Bank, through which the Philadelphia-based online commercial bank will provide payment services via 450 affinity relationships.

According to Schatt, PayPal's SendMoney for Financial Institutions product allows funds to be sent to people in more than 60 countries with email addresses and more than 10 countries with mobile telephone numbers.

All in, said Schatt, several hundred financial institutions have signed up to offer P2P from PayPal.

One plus of the PayPal offering is that it is the financial institution's choice how prominent, or not, it wants to make the PayPal name.

However, Schatt indicated some small institutions, including some credit unions, have asked “if they could make our logo bigger in the transaction notice, because of our brand recognition.”

Although many P2P transactions will be free in PayPal's thinking, ultimate pricing decisions will reside with the institution, said Schatt. He added that, in PayPal's view many consumers will gladly pay for instant P2P transfers or to send money overseas.

In that latter regard, Schatt said PayPal was positioning its service as a way for financial institutions to reclaim a share of foreign remittances, the vast majority of which presently are provided by non-banks.

“We want financial institutions to know we are not the devil,” said Schatt with a large smile across his face. “We are here to work with them and, we think, we are offering them best in class services at prices much lower than our competitors charge for less.”

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