PayPal Vs. Google Suit Reveals Rivalry Over Expected M-Payments Bonanza

Online payment company PayPal wasted little time in giving its review of the new Google Wallet, filing suit against the two Google executives who led the unveiling of the NFC wallet yesterday–accusing the executives of stealing PayPal's trade secrets.

PayPal, a unit of eBay, charges that Osama Bedier, Google’s vice president of payments, and Stephanie Tilenius, the Web giant’s vice president of commerce, made illegal use of the confidential PayPal information and strategy they had gleaned as former executives of PayPal or its parent eBay to help them build the Google Wallet. Tilenius and Bedier demonstrated the wallet and its payment and Google Offers promotion services yesterday at a press event in New York City.  

The complaint, filed yesterday in California Superior Court, also charges that the pair breached their contracts by trying to lure away other PayPal employees to Google to work on the mobile-commerce project. The suit also names Google, itself.

Google has declined to comment on the suit. 

Seeking First-Mover Advantage
The battle between the Silicon Valley rivals, both of which are trying to make the jump from the online world to the physical point of sale, highlights what is at stake in the budding mobile-payment business–which PayPal in its court petition calls a $200 billion to $1 trillion market within the next few years.

PayPal notes that the first-mover advantage will be just as important for staking a solid claim to the mobile-payment market as it was on the Internet, where PayPal is a major payments player, generating $3.4 billion in revenue last year. At the same time, revenue for Google’s later entry into the Web-payment market, Google Checkout, is negligible, notes PayPal. Other erstwhile competitors, Citigroup, Yahoo! And Western Union, all have closed their Internet payment services, PayPal added.

The petition doesn’t reveal any specifics of the trade secrets PayPal is accusing Tilenius or, in particular, Bedier of “misappropriating,” and doesn’t mention NFC.

But it contends there has been damage done already, and it will continue, since Bedier, who was PayPal’s vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures when he left in January 2011, was “extremely involved” in PayPal’s ongoing efforts to become a payment brand at the physical point of sale.

“Bedier’s role at Google is in part to remedy Google’s weaknesses in this area, already identified by PayPal,” states the complaint. “By hiring Bedier, with his trade-secret knowledge of PayPal’s plans and understanding of Google’s weaknesses as viewed by the industry leader, Google bought the most comprehensive and sophisticated critique of its own problems available.”

Trashing PayPal with Merchants?
PayPal also charges that Bedier disparaged PayPal after he'd joined Google, when he made sales calls on major merchants that both companies are trying to woo for their m-payment services. In those discussions, Bedier revealed PayPal’s confidential deployment plans, product features, its back-end approach to mobile payments and what PayPal sees as the “benefits of a wallet in the cloud” concept, contends PayPal.

Google in its wallet announcement, disclosed a number of major retail U.S. chains that have agreed to participate in its mobile-commerce launch this summer, including the huge Subway sandwich shop, which has more than 34,000 outlets worldwide; the largest retail pharmacies in the United States, including Walgreens; and well-known department store brands Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

PayPal reveals little in the court filing of its own plans for moving its payment service to the physical world, though it makes at least one other reference to its cloud-based approach to mobile wallets and applications.

“One form of digital-wallet technology is the ‘wallet in the cloud,’ where a customer’s financial data, payment options and preferences are stored online in addition to or instead of the mobile device itself, and is accessed on demand by whatever device or service a customer seeks to use.”

Although PayPal has been experimenting with mobile payment using contactless stickers that store the payment application, and which consumers could stick to the backs of their phones, some observers expect PayPal to enable consumers to make network-based payments away from the traditional point of sale and conventional contactless POS terminals. They might make the PayPal transaction in the store aisle, for example. This could still use NFC technology for tag reading to deliver offers, product information and open the payment application, itself.

Bedier may have disparaged this approach with merchants, since the Google Wallet does not propose cloud-based payment–putting a MasterCard PayPass application on a secure chip in the Google Nexus S phone.

Apart from the wallet, the complaint also contends that Bedier helped scuttle a three-year pending deal that would have enabled PayPal to serve as a payment option for app purchases by consumers on their Android phones.

This could merely be hard feelings on the part of PayPal over losing some high-priced talent, not unusual in the buzz-driven world of Silicon Valley, say some observers. And, at present, mobile payment and m-commerce are hot topics. Ironically, rumors are afoot that Tilenius herself is on her way out at Google, as well.

The fact that PayPal has gone to court over what it considers a breach of its trade secrets and raiding of its staff by a competitor shows that the company is “very serious about their move into the physical payments world,” said Tim Jefferson, head of UK-based consulting firm, The Human Chain.

PayPal in its complaint mainly accuses Tilenius, who left eBay in October 2009 as senior vice president of North America and Global Products, of breaching the terms of her contracts by poaching Bedier from PayPal to join her at Google, where she had been hired as head of commerce in February 2010. 

She had agreed not to recruit anyone from eBay or PayPal for one year after she left eBay. Her consulting contract contained a similar clause, alleges PayPal. 

Facebook Friends and ‘Little Birdie’
The petition prints Facebook messages Tilenius sent to Bedier, among other evidence, to back up its claim, including one she sent in mid-July 2010, nine months after she left her fulltime job at eBay. She served as an eBay consultant until early 2010.

According to the Facebook message, Tilenius talks of a “HUGE” opportunity for Bedier, then a nearly 8-year veteran of PayPal:

“How are you? Hope the wife and kids are well…hard to believe you have 4 kids, they all must be so big now,” wrote Tilenius, according to the petition. “I heard from little birdie that you might be open to bigger and better challenges, I have a HUGE opportunity for you, would love to chat if you are interested.”

She continued her efforts to recruit Bedier for Google for the next month and a half, alleges PayPal. 

The court filing does not reveal the identity of “little birdie.”

 

HEADLINE NEWS

Australian Transit Agency to Launch Mobility-as-a-Service Trial as It Pursues Long-Term MaaS Strategy

Plans by Transport for New South Wales, Australia’s largest transit agency, to launch a trial enabling users to plan, book and pay for multimodal rides is the next step toward the agency’s long-ter

Updated: U.S. Transit Agency Seeks to Reduce–Though Not Eliminate–Cash Acceptance with New Fare-Collection System

Updated: The Spokane Transit Authority in Washington state confirmed that its new fare-collection system will include contactless open-loop payments–with a beta test planned for next October, a spokesman told NFC Times' sister publication Mobility Payments.

UK Government Seeks to Bring London-Style Contactless Fare Payments System to Other Regions

The UK government’s plan to equip 700 rail stations over the next three years to accept contactless open-loop payments is a major initiative, as it seeks to replicate the success of London’s contactless pay-as-you go fare payments system elsewhere in the country–a goal that has proved elusive in the past.

More Cities in Finland Expected to Move to Open-Loop Fare Payments

A fourth city in Finland is beginning to roll out contactless open-loop payments, with “more in the pipeline,” according to one supplier on the project, making the Nordic country one of the latest hotspots for the technology.

Moscow Metro Expands Test of ‘Virtual Troika’ in Pays Wallets, as It Continues to Develop Digital-Payments Services

Moscow Metro is recruiting more users to test its “Virtual Troika” card in two NFC wallets, those supporting Google Pay and Samsung Pay, as one of the world’s largest subway operators continues to seek more ways for its customers to pay for rides.

Ohio Transit Agency Expects Significant Revenue Loss as it Builds Equity with Fare Capping

The Central Ohio Transit Authority, or COTA, officially launched its new digital-payments service Monday, including a fare-capping feature that the agency estimates will cost it $1.8 million per year in lost fare revenue, the agency confirmed to Mobility Payments.

Special Report: Interest Grows in ‘White-Label EMV’ for Closed-Loop Transit Cards

As more transit agencies introduce open-loop fare payments, interest is starting to grow in use of white-label EMV cards that agencies can issue in place of proprietary closed-loop cards for riders who don’t have bank cards or don’t want to use them to pay fares.

Swedish Transit Agency Launches Express Mode Feature for Apple Pay, though Most Ticketing Still with Barcode-Based App

Skånetrafiken, the transit agency serving one of Sweden’s largest counties, announced today it has expanded its contactless open-loop payments service to include the Express Mode feature for Apple Pay.

Major Bus Operators in Hong Kong Now Accepting Open-Loop Payments–Adding More Competition for Octopus

Two more bus operators in Hong Kong on Saturday launched acceptance of open-loop contactless fare payments, with both also accepting QR code-based mobile ticketing–as the near ubiquitous closed-loop Octopus card continues to see more competition.

Moscow Metro Launches Full Rollout of ‘Face Pay;’ Largest Biometric Payments Service of Its Kind

Touting it as the largest rollout of biometric payments in the world, Moscow Metro launched its high-profile “Face Pay” service Friday, as expected, and predicted that 10% to 15% would regularly us

Indonesian Capital Seeks to Expand to Multimodal Fare Collection and MaaS

Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, whose metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people, is notorious for its stifling traffic congestion. In response, the government metro and light-rail networks and now it is funding an expansion of the fare-collection system to enable more multimodal payments and to build a mobility-as-a-service platform.

Exclusive: NFC Wallets Grow as Share of Contactless Fare Payments and Not Only Because of Covid

Transit agencies that have rolled out open-loop contactless payments are seeing growing use of NFC wallets to pay fares, as Covid-wary passengers see convenience in tapping their phones or wearables to pay.