Everyone hates Mondays. But the folks at PayPal probably had a rougher Monday than you. First, it was reported that Amazon was taking on the eBay subsidiary with a new subscription and recurring payments billing service. Amazon users can now use their accounts and instantly bill the credit card (or account) on file to make payments for cell phone bills and subscription services like Spotify and Netflix. The new feature seems like a another step for Amazon in the payments market and taking on PayPal. (PayPal’s own bill pay service was discontinued in August 2005.) The Amazon service seeems to be an extension of capabilities for “Login and Pay with Amazon,” introduced in the fall of 2013, so that customers can pay with their credit or debit card linked to Amazon.com with third-party websites. Next came news that that PayPal cofounder Max Levchin made himself CEO of Affirm, a startup that was developed from Levchin’s own incubator, HVF. The Wall Street Journal reported that Affirm has raised $45 million from a number of influential venture capitalists, including Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Nyca Partners. It should be noted that Affirm is not a direct competitor of PayPal’s — the […]
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