Chen Yiji

July 18, 2016

What on earth is New Money?

I asked that question after hearing about PayPal’s New Money campaign launch in Singapore last Friday. It’s clearly not a new revolutionary payment system as it’s still the same old PayPal that we all know.

Here, watch this video and see if you understand: (Bonus if you can catch the toggle reference)

Well, from what I can see, New Money is all about providing the same safety that banks give while still being available 24/7. It’s about mobility and accessibility by making payments feel the same as if you were at a brick-and-mortar store.

Remember when I talked about trust being automated? PayPal wants to make that a reality with their existing payments systems.

Their solution comes in the form of 3 features: Buyer Protection, Seller Protection, and Refunded Returns.

Buyer Protection:

A whooping 180-day refund window, full refunds from PayPal and no liability if you were charged for something you didn’t buy. If you’re wondering how PayPal can make the vendors pay, they don’t. At least not immediately.

PayPal chases the vendors for money while all you experience is a quick refund after filing a legitimate claim.

Pretty legit, if you ask me.

Seller Protection:

If Buyer Protection sounds like a nightmare for your business, don’t worry. If people are abusing it, as long as you have the transactions history and proof, you’re protected against fraud.

This means that PayPal protects whoever’s honest instead of only protecting their interests. Having a middle man in this sense is great, especially when it won’t cost the consumer a cent.

Refunded Returns:

Basically PayPal saying: “never worry about the cost of returning online goods.”

It’s not a perfect system however, as PayPal only covers up to US$15 in shipping costs.

New Money By The Numbers

PayPal’s New Money campaign is aimed to make people feel safer when buying online. Currently, it’s still a wild west in Singapore in spite of our SGD5.5billion e-commerce industry in 2015.

Image Credit: Paypal — Image Credit: Naiise

Dennis Tay, founder of Naiise, a platform for people to discover original products, said about PayPal:

“PayPal provides our customers a seamless checkout process, taking our products to them anywhere in the world, at any time of the day.”

Players, in the form of mobile payment apps and NFC-enabled cards are entering Singapore’s payments industry, but no one has yet provided a complete payments solution which protects both consumers and merchants.

According to PayPal’s survey, over 69% of Singaporean online shoppers shop on a cross-border store. 80% of Singapore’s Millennials shop online, so if you aren’t yet, you should try it to see what the fuss is all about.

Here’s PayPal’s infographic on Millennial Shoppers:

“With no borders and boundaries, New Money lets you buy and sell to anyone, anywhere in the world, with the knowledge that whether you’re buying or selling, your eligible transactions are protected with PayPal,” said Mr Rahul Shinghal, General Manager for PayPal Southeast Asia.

Singaporean entrepreneurs can thus expect to be able to rely on the support of PayPal for their new e-commerce startups. In my interviews with e-commerce entrepreneurs, they often cite the difficulties in arranging the logistics to sell overseas as the main reason why they refuse to.

I expect that PayPal would have some tie-ins with logistics companies soon enough. They already have Prosecure under their wing, and what they want to accomplish is exactly what Singaporean entrepreneurs need access to if they want to go global. -Vulcan Post