Paydiant Acquisition Closes – Officially Part of PayPal

Paydiant has officially dotted the “i” and crossed the “t” to become part of the PayPal enterprise.

As of Thursday (April 2), the white-label, cloud-based mobile wallet platform for retailers, banks and payment processors, is part of the PayPal name that will soon be part of its own company once it splits from eBay. PayPal announced its intentions to acquire Paydiant on March 2, and sources cited by re/code indicated the purchase price will be $280 million.

The acquisition will allow PayPal to use Paydiant’s platform, which allows its partners to integrate technology agnostic, complete mobile wallet capabilities into their own mobile apps, and help further build its portfolio of products as it moves toward being an independent company. Through the acquisition, it appears as though MCX as a brand may also have a future, based on remarks provided by Bill Ready, SVP and Global Head of Merchant and Next Gen Commerce at PayPal.

“Paydiant [is] the company that provides the mobile wallet platform for MCX, whose members include many of the world’s most loved retailers. Paydiant has also helped great brands like Subway, Harris Teeter, Capital One and many others build mobile payments, offers and loyalty into their own mobile applications,” he wrote in the company’s blog post on April 2. “All of these merchants will now enjoy the advantage of having access to PayPal’s deep expertise in the mobile payments space, enormous customer base, best-in-class risk management, customer support, open payments architecture and global reach.”

Paydiant’s highest profile partnership is with MCX – the backers of the merchant centric CurrentC mobile wallet. Almost exactly one year ago, MCX signed a deal with Paydiant to integrate its white-label, cloud-based platform with MCX’s mobile commerce system. CurrentC has struggled to get off the ground, with rumors circulating that some of its heaviest hitter members would be leaving given the restrictive nature of its contracts.

Ready said the acquisition will also help PayPal develop its relationships with merchants by speeding up their ability to offer merchants the opportunity to develop their own branded wallets, which he said will help drive up mobile payments for the company.

“We believe this will accelerate mobile-in-store payments for these merchants and drive consumer engagement through loyalty, offers and the prioritization of preferred payment types, such as store branded credit cards and gift cards,” Ready said. “Similar to PayPal, Paydiant’s technology agnostic approach means that merchants can use the mobile payment technology that best suits their business, whether that is QR code or NFC, and they can do so across major operating systems and platforms.”

As it relates to digital wallets, PayPal President Dan Schulman said last month that Paydiant will help PayPal “scale its mobile wallet technology and offer value-added benefits to its merchant customers” with PayPal’s global reach of more than 200 markets and 162 million active digital wallets.

“Together, I believe PayPal and Paydiant will enable merchants to create beautiful mobile experiences that make it easier and safer for their customers to shop and pay. I’m really excited for the Paydiant team and founders to join the PayPal team,” he said.

When the acquisition was announced, PayPal also dropped one big hint that PayPal is ready to do more than just enable mobile commerce through the PayPal digital wallet.

“We want to make sure we enable mobile commerce across a wide variety of platforms, including the PayPal wallet as well as merchant, or FI (financial institution) wallets,” PayPal’s GM of Retail Brad Brodigan told MPD CEO Karen Webster in an interview March 2. “We really appreciate Paydiant’s capabilities like value added services because it gives us a tremendous opportunity to have differentiated wallet experiences for both merchants and consumers.

As for making Paydiant part of PayPal, Brodigan said the company will help diversify what PayPal can offer both its merchants and consumers. He also indicated that Paydiant will help grow PayPal’s strategies to deliver solutions to their merchant partners.

“I think it is very consistent with our strategy, which is that we will continue to provide our consumer the PayPal app as well as a series of experiences through those apps,” Brodigan said. “Now with Paydiant, we can take advantage of their ability to deliver world class white-label solutions for their merchant partners. And it allows us to provide support for digital payments in the mobile wallet ecosystem for those brands that require a mobile design specifically for them.”