November 16, 2001

1:09 PM

c2it to be free; PayPal raising fees.Will this spell the end of PayPal? Free c2it from Citibank can be used the same way the "old" PayPal could (for friends and roommates to settle up bills) as well cutting deeply into PayPal's core on-line auction settlement business (well over half its revenue), already under attack by eBay's Billpoint.
posted by MattD (8 comments total)

I suspect that Citibank will offer it's services for free just long enough to take away a big chunk of PayPal's market share and then will raise their rates to levels just under or at the same level as PayPal.
posted by Vek at 1:28 PM on November 16, 2001

Wow, that is one of the worst logos I've seen since people were getting rich online. The name's not completely horrible...

I guess I'll go sign up. Not that anyone's giving me money through my site, but if anyone ever wanted to, I could care less which service they choose.
posted by joemaller at 1:36 PM on November 16, 2001

This doesn't spell the end of PayPal; it spells the end of c2it. It looks to me that c2it is raising the white flag.
PayPal has developed a strong fraud-deterrent system. It'll be interesting to see if c2it can glean the fraudsters from the honest people if its traffic shoots up. If it can't, it'll lose lots of money, and the corporate masters at Citicorp will demand a halt to the losses.
Citibank's lack of success in catching money launderers doesn't bode well for c2it's success.
posted by Holden at 1:38 PM on November 16, 2001

PrayPal?
posted by mmarcos at 2:25 PM on November 16, 2001

Do no credit card companies or banks have programs like PayPal? I would have thought that existing financial institutions would have a considerable advantage over PayPal.

I try to minimize my use of PayPal because of the charges to non-U.S. folks, but I've been pleased with their service when I do use it. Most recently, I bought the explodingdog book with PayPal. (You should too.)
posted by Yogurt at 2:39 PM on November 16, 2001

"In addition, by making c2it a free service, Citibank could help draw customers to its banking, brokerage and insurance services."

In other words, prepare to be spammed to death by Citibank!
posted by Carol Anne at 3:02 PM on November 16, 2001

Yogurt: Thanks for the tip. I havent' visited Sam in a while (too long), so I wasn't aware of the book. explodingdog has always been a favorite site of mine.
posted by jpoulos at 3:25 PM on November 16, 2001

Citibank could well use this as a loss-leader service, and they're backed by one of the largest financial institutions in the world, so they're not exactly on the brink.
posted by dhartung at 5:40 PM on November 16, 2001