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PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

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Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#61
post #55

Boy, everyone is so negative about the purchase on here! Braintree's customer base is far too large at this point for PayPal to just shut it down ; that would be terrible PR because Braintree is critical to many businesses at this point. It's also not that easy to just go rip out one processor for another on a huge legacy code base. PayPal would be making things worse for themselves if they did that and this purchase…

I don't know about the future of Braintree but I know that this acquisition is bad for the e-commerce market. It's an irony that companies challenging the status quo end being part of it.

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#63
Rather than bickering about how this is bad for the market, why don't you folks write to the DOJ or your congressmen and voice your opposition?

The DOJ rightfully stopped the AT&T / T-Mobile merger in its tracks, who is to say that they wouldn't do something similar in this case?

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#65
post #55

Boy, everyone is so negative about the purchase on here! Braintree's customer base is far too large at this point for PayPal to just shut it down ; that would be terrible PR because Braintree is critical to many businesses at this point. It's also not that easy to just go rip out one processor for another on a huge legacy code base. PayPal would be making things worse for themselves if they did that and this purchase…

Braintree processes ~11b/year. Paypal ~$145b/y.

This year Paypal expects to process on mobile twice as much as Braintree is processing as a whole.

The margins in this business are very small, .9% transaction fees on 11b are not that huge.

Where Braintree misses the opportunity is gathering better for young startups that are in the early growth phase. 100 EUR monthly minimum on .10c/trx fees is not easy to digest in the beginning.

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#66
post #60

It's disappointing, because among that market segment, Braintree is the only one that offers phone support, and for that, I fancy them over Stripe, Balanced, and others. That said, maybe now with Paypal support, they will reverse their stance on crowdfunding. If not, I'm desperate for a professional payment processor that doesn't ask me to send an email if I have an issue.

[deleted]

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#67
post #55

Boy, everyone is so negative about the purchase on here! Braintree's customer base is far too large at this point for PayPal to just shut it down ; that would be terrible PR because Braintree is critical to many businesses at this point. It's also not that easy to just go rip out one processor for another on a huge legacy code base. PayPal would be making things worse for themselves if they did that and this purchase…

Yes, and PayPal definitely has a history of not upsetting its customers, avoiding negative PR, and not making things worse for themselves. We can certainly bet on them to handle this acquisition in a reasonable way.

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#68
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only PayPal had joined Braintree's "Credit Card Data Portability" initiative [1]. I'm betting that's dead now with them joining PayPal, if it's even still active. If it is, get your data out quick before PayPal can lock it in! [1]: https://www.braintreepayments.com/blog/open-letter-to-the-ce...

I'm somewhat annoyed that they do not publish the list of providers who have joined this initiative [1]. [1] http://www.portabilitystandard.org/ (FAQ Q #1)

[deleted]

Re: PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

#69

Rather than bickering about how this is bad for the market, why don't you folks write to the DOJ or your congressmen and voice your opposition? The DOJ rightfully stopped the AT&T / T-Mobile merger in its tracks, who is to say that they wouldn't do something similar in this case?

Because there are hundreds of options for credit card processing in the US, as opposed to a handful of cell providers for some regions. There's no risk of creating a monopoly or significantly reducing competition here.
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