PayPal is rolling out a new identity solution designed to help streamline the mobile shopping experience. Unveiled at the Future Insights conference in Las Vegas, the payment company is launching Log In With PayPal. With this service, developers and third-party commerce sites can easily help shoppers pay for what they want with as few swipes and information needed — but still in a secure environment.
Log In with PayPal is not PayPal’s competitor to Facebook Connect or Google+ Sign In. However, it does leverage the OAuth 2.0 protocol that Facebook uses to authenticate users. The idea is that the company’s 128 million account holders can simply complete their purchase through the use of their username and passsword, or mobile number and PIN as a confirmation of their identity.
Damon Hougland, PayPal’s Senior Director of Identity, says that as more people shop using mobile devices, merchants and retailers are facing the challenge of making it easier to shop and pay. Log In with PayPal makes it possible so that when a purchase is made, customers need only enter in their login credentials and PayPal will take care of the rest. Typically, a business might ask for more information about the customer for whatever purposes. The more fields someone needs to fill out, the greater the chance for shopping cart abandonment.
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Log In with PayPal takes data already associated with a customer’s PayPal account and passes it to the merchant in a secure manner. After entering in the proper credentials, the customer will be displayed information about their account and whether they would like to agree to share it with the business. Once agreed, the transaction is complete and no additional information is needed.
This new login version is a replacement for PayPal Access and is meant to help provide a higher level of assurance and trust to both parties to verify that the identities are true. Of course, if you update your information in your account, an update will be sent to those services using Log In with PayPal so that they have the latest information.
Developers interested in integrating Log In with PayPal into their services can take advantage of it starting today. Hougland says that it uses open-based technologies such as OAuth and JSON. The creation of this new service comes from PayPal’s release of its new RESTful API at South by Southwest last March.
Photo credit: ERIC PIERMONT/AFP/Getty Images
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