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PayPal was going to partner with Apple Pay, but then it cozied up to Samsung

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Hell hath no fury like Apple scorned. Apple and Paypal were reportedly in talks to add PayPal as a preferred partner to Apple Pay, but then eBay’s CEO John Donahoe aligned PayPal with Samsung instead. Just as PayPal’s former president David Marcus predicted, Apple immediately shut PayPal out of Apple Pay indefinitely. Now, PayPal is one of the only big players in the mobile payment space that isn’t a part of Apple Pay.

Sources familiar with the negotiations between Apple and PayPal told Bank Innovation that PayPal was among the first companies Cupertino contacted when it began work on Apple Pay. Apparently, the two companies were close to working out a deal and even perhaps establishing a preferred partnership, when eBay’s Donahoe pushed PayPal into a deal with Samsung. PayPal’s Marcus was said to be against the deal because he feared it would damage the company’s relationship with Apple.

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Needless to say, his advice was ignored and PayPal joined forces with Apple’s known rival, Samsung on the company’s fingerprint scanner for the Galaxy S5 smartphone. One source told the publication that as soon as Apple got wind of the deal, it  “kicked them out of the door.” Marcus later left PayPal for Facebook and now eBay says it will spin Paypal off into a separate company.

Ever since Apple Pay was unveiled in September, PayPal has been aggressively campaigning against the new mobile payments service. It recently launched an ad campaign, in which it said PayPal stands for the people who “want our money safer than our selfies.” The ad refers to the Apple iCloud scandal in which nude photos of prominent celebrities leaked all over the Internet.

Malarie Gokey
Malarie Gokey
Former Mobile Editor
As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…
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