PayPal making a big push in the mobile payments industry.

The mobile payments industry is on fire at the moment and PayPal has been working hard ramping up its mobile payments offerings. On Thursday it launched it's mobile credit card payment processing competitor to Square called "PayPal Here" currently only available in the US, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong.

Square Credit Card Reader

Square founded by Jack Dorsey has until now been the leader in the mobile phone payment processing market, and currently processes up to $4 billion of transactions annually from over 1 million customers and is currently only available in 50 US states. The mobile payments industry is one of the fastest growing mobile markets and Juniper Research reports that the mobile payments industry will be worth a whopping $170 billion by 2015, up from $60 billion in 2011.

PayPal Here Credit Card Reader

PayPal launched in 1998 and in 2002 it was acquired by the online auction marketplace ebay, since then it has become the de facto in online payments with over 100 million customers in 190 countries. So it is a natural progression for PayPal wanting to be #1 in the mobile payments industry. Will it topple the current leader Square who have been processing credit card payments through mobile devices since 2009, (which is a long time considering the pace at which the mobile market is moving) only time will tell.

The mobile credit card reader makes it easier for sellers of services and goods to accept and process payments on the go through the Apple iOS and Android mobile devices, more devices will be added in the near future. PayPal and Square offer both their readers for free with no set up fees, but whereas Square charges 2.75% per transaction PayPal will charge 2.7% per transaction.

There are 3 things you will need to accept payments though: 1) a PayPal account 2) a card reader for your mobile device and 3) the PayPal Here app installed on your mobile device. Watch a brief demo video of the PayPal Here service below.

I should think PayPal will begin to roll out to other countries over the next few months and i'm looking forward to seeing it become available in the UK, i think it will become widely used here, if you'll pardon the pun. 

If your one of the lucky ones in one of the countries where it is available and you get a chance to use it, either as a seller or buyer please let me know in the comments below i would be keen to hear about your experience.