PayNearMe, based in Mountain View, Calif., announced a affiliation on Tuesday, May 10, with 7-Eleven and Ria Financial Services to give permission consumers wage bills and wire funds using cash—with lesser fees than apply to money tips and Western Union (WU) transfers.
U.S. Consumers used cash to kind not far off from $1.2 trillion in purchases carry on time, according to explore safe Aite Group. Still, Americans not including stack cards look hassles demanding to wage bills, superstore online, or kind travel reservations. PayNearMe's knowledge can be used to good buy everything from car and concert tickets to books on Amazon.Com (AMZN) by walking into the close 7-Eleven put in storage.
"The `underbanked' is a giant underserved marketplace," says Danny Shader, who founded PayNearMe in 2009 similar to promotion his prior companies to Motorola (MMI) and Amazon. "We're making it better, earlier and cheaper in place of them to transact."
Amazon.Com is already working with PayNearMe, which besides announced partnerships on Tuesday, May 10, with travel company Greyhound Lines (FGP:LN) and with Sochitel UK, which lets consumers add minutes to prepaid phone campaign.
Startup Goal: Facebook Payment Medium
Shader on track the company with the refer to Kwedit and the mission of plateful players of Facebook games good buy virtual currency with cash by printing barred take and taking them to 7-Eleven. He soon open with the aim of near was greater demand from more traditional offline merchants. He misused the refer to to PayNearMe carry on time and has been working with 7-Eleven to magnetize such industries as entertainment and economic services. The company is rebuff longer working with Facebook.
Khosla Ventures led a $16 million investment in PayNearMe in November, in part to help the company get bigger its roster of merchants. Other investors include majestic Capital, True Ventures, and Lotus Development break down Mitch Kapor.
"There isn't a company on this planet with the aim of wouldn't be thankful for 25 percent more marketplace," thought David Hornik, a partner by the side of majestic Capital in Menlo Park, Calif., who has been investing in payment startups in place of a decade. "The great big opportunity is to enable a collection of transactions with the aim of nonentity to boot has enabled."
For the organization to toil, it will maintain to process hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars in transactions a time, for the reason that PayNearMe takes solitary a small bring to an end of both, Shader thought. The amount varies by type of artifact and customer. Sometimes the cost is absorbed by the business and other time by the consumer, thought Shader, who didn't provide details.
The expense consumers incur to send out bills and to wire money using PayNearMe is cheaper than with the aim of in place of money tips or transfers through Western Union, he thought. Ria Financial, a piece of Leawood (Kan.)-based Euronet Worldwide (EEFT), will import money transfers and bill payment services on PayNearMe's behalf.
Rivals: Green Dot and Netspend
PayNearMe faces competition from Green Dot (GDOT) and Netspend Holdings (NTSP), which provide reloadable prepaid cards with the aim of consumers can obtain in supermarkets and convenience food. Both companies held opening shared offerings carry on time.
Shader says the capability to wage bills is the biggest improvement to PayNearMe. Some 3,000 billers maintain signed up to wear out the organization, he says. The bills will cart a 7-Eleven logo by the side of the substructure, subsequently to a hinder code with commands on to how to wage with cash. Customers can take the bill to a put in storage, maintain the director search the barcode, and after that kind the payment. The money is repeatedly remitted to the biller through the payment net with the aim of PayNearMe built.
The same applies to merchandise purchased online from Amazon.Com and to car tickets from Greyhound. Rather than going away to the confined station, waiting in line, and chancing with the aim of the car might be overbooked, travelers can put your name down for a journey online, print a PayNearMe slip, and take it to 7-Eleven. There, they wage in cash and wear out the receipt as the car ticket.
"PayNearMe will ultimately enable us to add thousands of ticketing locations, so with the aim of our customers can simply contract tickets some schedule of daylight hours," Dave Leach, chief executive representative of Dallas-based Greyhound, thought in a statement.