Barclays and Paypal announce tie-up as banks mull big tech threat

The partnership will see consumers get a raft of new features that will make it easier to manage their PayPal account in Barclays digital channels, and to use the bank’s products in their PayPal digital wallet.

For instance, customers will be able to seamlessly add Barclays cards to their PayPal wallets; have these cards automatically updated when they expire; and see the Barclays card image in the PayPal wallet to help easily select their preferred way to pay.

Meanwhile, PayPal’s small business customers in the UK will now be able to choose to see a snapshot of their PayPal balance, recent transactions and sales on the Barclays SmartBusiness Dashboard. 

Ashok Vaswani, Barclays UK CEO, says: “Our customers and clients live in an increasingly connected world and this is why we are working with PayPal to make services more joined up and convenient for them. By joining forces, we can make it much easier for people to manage their money and payments. 

“Each of these new features – whether removing the hassle of updating an expired card, connecting with Pingit, or being able to see all your finances in one place, are about designing the very best customer experience.”

PayPal has been busy building ties with the big banks in the last year, inking a range of agreements across a full spectrum of payment channels with the likes of Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC.