PayPal Digital Wallet Introduced

PayPal has just lifted off the covers of its new digital wallet platform, which now only aims to further increase its presence in emerging digital payments but also adds some new and interesting features to the market. For example, users can specify various rules for automatically selecting a specific payment method based on purchase price or merchant. It will reportedly replace the existing PayPal.com home page, which hasn't been updated in years.

PayPal has made a lot of advancements in a very short period of time. In just the last several months, the company has launched Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless payment exchange between phones, it enabled users to deposit checks via a mobile app, and it rolled out the ability to pay at the retail point-of-sale at virually all Home Depot locations.

PayPal has been sitting around as the primary leader in alternative payments for years, but in 2012 it is poised to face a lot of competition. The advancement of NFC technology will allow other third-party payment providers to really make a splash. As a result, PayPal is doing exactly what it needs to do – stay ahead of the curve. And it truly is doing just that. The idea of using your PayPal account to not only pay for but also accept payments outside of digital transactions would have seemed foreign just a couple years ago, but now it's becoming exceedingly commonplace.

[via VentureBeat]