Features

PayPal and friends 30/06/2009

WITH OPERATORS falling over each other to bring it on board, global internet payments giant PayPal can perhaps afford to be “sniffy”, as one online gaming payments expert put it, about which gambling operators it partners with.

PayPal’s cautious attitude towards the sector – working only with the biggest, (often) listed companies after exhaustive due diligence – is in part a legacy of its US$10m settlement with the US Department of Justice in July 2003 over servicing offshore gambling companies.

Demonstrating an unblemished record would necessarily be in its favour should the opportunity to get involved in the US gambling payments market arise in the future.

However, this arm’s length approach to the sector, combined with the refusal of PayPal UK’s head of PR to answer questions or confirm basic facts relating to the company’s greater involvement in the space of late, such as which companies it works with, left one with the unfortunate impression it was treating its association with the European egaming sector as a rather shameful secret.

This despite the fact that many other payment processors, including other listed companies, now work with thousands of companies in the European gambling payments space.

PayPal may not even view the sector in this light at all, but during the course of three phone calls and one email, the only comment it offered on its recent activity was that it “continue(s) to expand its relationships with the major gaming brands in the UK”.

As a result, it’s hard to shake the feeling PayPal is preparing to take a larger slice of the pie from an industry it’s not yet that comfortable to be seen fraternising with.

Perhaps this is just a consequence of lazy PR, but such an impression hardly reflects well on either the company or the industry.

This article first appeared in the May edition of eGaming Review. For more on PayPal, see our PayPal feature.

Posted: 30/06/2009

Tags: Payment Processing , PayPal

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