PayPal launches new debit card for business users

Tie-in with Mastercard gives traders easier access to funds

PayPal has launched a debit card for its business users that will give traders easier access to their funds.

The card is part of a tie-in with Mastercard, and can be accepted either online or in person at more than 52 million locations globally.

The payments company said it will not charge monthly fees for the use of the card, nor will it be imposing foreign exchange fees for international transactions, and it is offering unlimited cashback on the card with users earning 0.5 per cent back on purchases. The cash back is automatically credited to the user’s PayPal business account at the beginning of the following month.

Cash withdrawals from ATMs will incur a fixed fee of €2 per transaction.

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"When selling online becomes even more important to you, which we're seeing, having that instant access to your cash becomes even more important because people still need to buy things where you know, you can't buy with PayPal that's the reality it could be physical stores could be withdrawing some cash or couldn't even be online," said Joachim Goyvaerts, director of Benelux and Ireland for PayPal.

“It also makes it easy to manage. You get the overview of what comes in, what goes out and and then in the end what your your net revenue is. This is a tool for for businesses, especially the smaller ones, to easily manage their business.”

The new debit card will be available holders of a PayPal business account, and can be ordered online.

PayPal has more than 1.5 million active users in Ireland, including consumers. Although the company does not give exact numbers for business users in Ireland, globally, it is around 10 per cent and Ireland is thought to have a similar figure.

“Ireland is one of the markets or the countries with a stronger lock-down being applied so anything we can do to to help the small businesses, that’s that’s really the the idea behind it,” said Mr Goyvaerts. “The fact that we can give cashback on top of it ...that’s one of the means we can help businesses these days.”

PayPal added 21.3 million new customers globally in the last quarter. “Ireland is growing so fast. Overall we see globally that we onboard three times more new businesses compared to the past and and that trend this is much stronger in Ireland,” Mr Goyvaerts said.

The card is already available in Germany, the UK and the US; it also launches on Wednesday in Austria, France, Italy and Spain.

"Small businesses form the backbone of the Irish economy," said Sonya Geelon, Ireland Country Manager at Mastercard. "At Mastercard we strive to support these key pillars of our community by making their access to funds as simple and convenient as possible."

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist