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Taking on PayPal

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner:  Someone is going after PayPal, which  dominates 
the online payment market. The eBay subsidiary processed more than 27 billion dollars in 
the first quarter of this year.

Three major banks want a piece of that pie. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase are 
introducing Clear X-Change. It will enable customers to send money from their checking 
account to other customers, simply by giving their mobile phone numbers or e-mail 
addresses.

It's already available in Arizona, and should be available nationally within a year.

Stamp collectors are big customers of PayPal. It not only enables quick electronic 
payment across long distances, but takes care of currency conversions when the buyer and 
seller are in different countries. Clear X-Change will only handle domestic transactions 
at first.

The banks say one of the advantages of their system is there's no need to set up a 
separate account and keep it funded, as you do with PayPal. 

I'm not sure all stamp collectors will see that as an advantage. Before PayPal, stamp 
buyers often used special, separate checking accounts for their purchases… where their 
spouses couldn't see how much they were spending on the hobby.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting, 
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.  

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