PayPal is adding a new feature to its services with the ability for consumers to pay bills through the company’s payment service after its acquisition of TIO Networks.

The acquisition will let PayPal customers pay certain bills through the company’s proprietary payment service. The move is an effort on PayPal’s part to expand its mobile payment capabilities to and offer new services to its customers.

“By acquiring TIO and integrating bill payment into our global payments platform, PayPal adds another key service in our efforts to become a part of a consumer’s everyday financial life,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal.

“Worldwide, more than 2 billion people do not have affordable access to basic financial services, making it difficult and expensive for consumers to carry out basic financial tasks, including bill payment,” he said. “TIO’s digital platform, and physical network of agent locations make paying bills simpler, faster, and more affordable.

“We are excited by the opportunity to extend this valuable service to our existing customers and welcome new billers and customers to PayPal.”

Mobile bill pay
PayPal has recently closed a deal that would see the company acquiring bill payment service TIO Networks.

Under the terms of the deal, PayPal is going to fold in services from TIO’s platform and integrate them into PayPal’s standard service.

This means that consumers and customers of PayPal will be able to pay certain bills using PayPal, from desktop and mobile.

This new feature expands what PayPal is able to offer to its consumers and sees the company branching out from personal money exchange and retail practices to also help consumers with bill paying.

The move was motivated both by a desire to expand what mobile payments are capable of and to combat the lack of comprehensive digital bill payments available to consumers from standard billing platforms.

Staying on top
This new acquisition and subsequent addition of features represents another strong move on the part of PayPal as it seeks to continue asserting dominance in the world of digital payments.

As this world expands and more companies, including banks and retailers, begin to offer their own mobile payment programs, PayPal is forced to expand what it is capable of offering to remain competitive.

This is the logic that has motivated multiple recent moves on PayPal’s part.

The company’s OneTouch system has seen significant success in driving strong mobile results (see story).

Similarly, PayPal recently began letting customers deposit cash directly into their PayPal accounts at 7-Elevens, completely bypassing the need for banks at all (see story).

This acquisition represents the next step in PayPal’s plan to continue growing its commitment to bringing payments outside of their standard comfort zone as a retail solution or personal money exchange platform.

As banks and retailers from around the industry seek to break off their own piece of the payments pie, PayPal is trying to remain top dog in the area through these types of initiatives.

“We founded TIO to make speed and access part of the bill payment experience for the underserved, and we believe that we have created affordable products to serve the needs of all customers,” said Hamed Shahbazi, chairman and CEO of TIO. “Our mission fits perfectly with PayPal’s vision to democratize money.

“As part of the PayPal team, we believe we will accelerate our growth through expanded distribution and continue increasing access to more billers and services.”