PayPal, Mastercard team up to power real-time transfers in Europe

Mastercard and PayPal have added to an existing partnership by using Mastercard Send to support immediate access for debit transfers via PayPal's mobile in nine European markets.

The instant transfer service is available in Germany, Spain, Italy, the U.K., Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Slovenia and Romania. PayPal has offered instant transfers for years, launching in the U.S. in 2017 and Singapore in 2019. It also follows the September announcement of PayPal expanding its Business Debit Mastercard to five new European countries including Italy and Spain, following an earlier introduction to Germany and the U.K.

“This extension to our long-standing partnership with PayPal is another step towards providing more choices for the people that we serve,” David Dechamps, senior vice president, digital payments and labs for Europe at Mastercard, said in a press release.

Real-time transfer options are available for consumers and business customers, who can provide earlier access to earnings to improve cash flow and pay bills.

In March 2019 PayPal expanded instant transfers to U.S. bank accounts and then in July 2019 to Canadian bank accounts with the Visa Direct transfer service. PayPal in September announced plans to take the Visa Direct relationship to new global markets for its PayPal digital wallet and related apps, such as Xoom.

PayPal’s wallets are becoming key to driving growth in its overall active accounts, which have seen explosive growth so far this year. In its first and second quarters of 2020, PayPal added more than 20 million net new active accounts, double its quarterly rate in 2019.