PayPal is expanding their presence in the retail sector thanks to a new deal stuck with Discover. The partnership will be the second with a major financial institution as the e-commerce business already has a deal where users can access their PayPal funds using a MasterCard debit card.
The Discover deal will mean that PayPal will be an acceptable form of payment at more than seven million additional locations in the US. Although Discover doesn't quite have the same reach as Visa or MasterCard - it's close. The service is accepted at roughly 95 percent of the same merchants as the two other services combined. PayPal will give Discover a small percentage of each transaction for allowing them to use their payment network.
Outside of Discover, PayPal has already inked deals with 16 individual merchants, a figure that is expected to rise to 20 by the end of this year. As of writing, customers can use their PayPal account to pay for goods at over 3,000 locations such as Jamba Juice, Jos. A Bank, Abercrombie & Fitch and Home Depot, just to name a few.
Customers will have to wait until April 2013 before they can use their PayPal cards at Discover-enabled merchants, however. It's unsure why it will take so long for the rollout to occur given the fact that there won't be any software upgrades to handle. PayPal already works all of the required hardware partners, according to All Things D.