Bunch of stories hitting the news reader this morning about a service coming from PayPal called PayPal Pay Later. Reportedly it’s going to offer merchants the ability to give customers using PayPal the ability to finance $50-1,500+ with deals like 90 days same as cash.

I searched PayPal’s site both outside and inside (we’ve been PayPal business members since 2002) and couldn’t find anything to confirm and the few sources that did link something chose to link to the paypal.com homepage. Maybe I need my glasses checked, do you see anything on their homepage about this? Don’t you love it when you can’t confirm news from the horse’s mouth?

Piecing it together from e-commerce-guide (emphasis mine):

The PayPal Pay Later service is issued by GE Money Bank, one of the world’s leading providers of consumer credit. PayPal’s new deferred payment option is currently available to consumers and select merchants in the U.S.

The GE Money Bank website is no more helpful with the news about where you can see/use this in action and when it will be available to small businesses. Heck, I can’t even locate a list of select merchants that are using the service to point readers to. Striking out big time on this one, sorry. I’ll defer this one to updates in the comments.

I’m a fan of using these same as cash offers provided you pay them off before the due date and don’t incur any accrued interest charges. The new bedroom furniture we bought recently was with a one year same as cash deal. We’re going to let our money work for us and then pay off before the year is up. I wish the new car we’ve been shopping for would be offered like this, but you never (?) see vehicles offered that way.

In the long run, this could hurt established Bill Me Later, especially if the credit is handed out more liberally at PayPal Pay Later. They best be careful though, I remember a few places like Smith’s Home Furnishings that have gone under due to giving credit to credit unworthy applicants. However in the short term I don’t think Bill Me Later (Hmm Review grade: A) needs to worry much about PayPal Later until, well, later.

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