Skype, the Microsoft owned instant messaging and video chat app will now support peer to peer transactions from PayPal. The feature as of now is only available to send money to family and friends and not for business purposes. Although PayPal is the market leader in international transactions, it has almost no presence in domestic transactions in countries like India. The payments major tried to enter the mobile wallet space in India by buying a stake in PayTm and FreeCharge. Further, the impending launch of peer to peer payment service by Skype’s biggest rival WhatsApp is expected to cut the market share of all major payments platforms. As of now, we don’t have an update on when this feature will be available to users in India.
The peer-to-peer payment feature at this point is only available for Skype users in 22 countries– US, UK, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. During the last 12 months, PayPal has partnered with Apple, Slack, and Microsft to push peer-to-peer transactions on iMessage, Slack, and in an email via Microsoft’s Outlook.com.
Earlier in June, Hike became the first instant messaging app in India to enable UPI enabled bank-to-bank payments to its users.