With the new Skype Send Money feature in place, the “I’m on the phone” excuse for not paying someone quickly becomes obsolete. The popular online messaging app just entered into a partnership with PayPal making it possible for people to send money to each other even in the middle of a chat.
Skype launched its Send Money feature yesterday just last week, allowing its users to make peer-to-peer payments. The feature, which is activated by a mere swipe to the right and tap on the Send Money option, is only available in 22 countries at the moment.
Introducing Send Money, a new feature that lets you transfer funds via the new Skype mobile app using @PayPal: https://t.co/L17anHLsY5 pic.twitter.com/WOejSGKjyx
— Skype (@Skype) August 2, 2017
Aside from the U.S. and Canada, most of the countries where the Skype Send Money feature works are located in Europe. These list of countries include Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and U.K. Skype is making payment extra convenient by allowing users in these regions to send funds even in the middle of a conversation.
For the feature to be activated, the latest version of the Skype mobile app needs to be installed on the sender’s phone, Tech Crunch reported. The receiving party, on the other hand, may use any version of Skype and still receive the funds. Of course, the receiver must have a PayPal account for the transfer to work.
Skype and PayPal will not charge for the transfer if the funds come from the user’s PayPal balance or from a U.S. debit card. On the other hand, transfers funded by a credit card will be slapped with a 3.4 percent transaction cost plus a fee of 30 cents.
PayPal has been busy positioning itself to retain its market share amidst emerging threats to its business like Apple Pay and Zelle, a service offered by U.S. banks that works like Venmo. The U.S. based online payment system even partnered with rivals Apple, Visa and MasterCard to make financial transactions for its users as seamless as possible. The recent partnership with Skype will allow it to have access to the latter’s 300 million active users, a sizable potential boost to its client base.
[Featured Image by Skype]