Metavante Unit To Offer Services To PayPal

Metavante Technologies Inc. plans to offer a variety of payment services to PayPal Inc., building on an alliance the Milwaukee-based company announced today. Metavante says its Link2Gov Corp. unit already offers PayPal's Bill Me Later service as a payment option for consumers who want to pay their federal taxes or make other government payments. San Jose, Calif.-based EBay Inc., which owns the PayPal person-to-person online payment unit, bought the instant credit provider Bill Me Later Inc. in November (CardLine, 11/07/08). Link2Gov is one of two companies authorized to process credit and debit card payments on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service. The other is Reston, Va.-based Tier Technologies Inc., which operates the OfficialPayments.com Web site. "We're hoping to do more activities with them going forward," says Frank G. D'Angelo, group president of the Metavante Payment Solutions unit. Metavante's PIN-less debit and pay-anyone services are candidates that PayPal might consider offering to its customers, but D'Angelo says he could not discuss any plans beyond the Link2Gov announcement. Under this agreement, Metavante has added Bill Me Later as a standard payment option on Link2Gov's Pay1040.com Web site. Link2Gov also will offer a Bill Me Later option, along with the credit and debit card and electronic-check payment offerings it provides to other government agencies, including state and local governments. The arrangement makes Bill Me Later credit an option for businesses making quarterly tax payments online, another mainstay of the Link2Gov service. Metavante is not involved in managing the credit risk for consumers using Bill Me Later's deferred payment service, D'Angelo says. "We do the processing, but when you sign up at the Web site you become a Bill Me Later customer," he says, noting the risk is "between Bill Me Later and the customer." Metavante bought Link2Gov in 2005. The business continues to grow, D'Angelo says, declining to provide details of the unit's transaction volumes or the division of the business between income taxes, payroll taxes, and other taxes and fees to federal, state and local governments.