Pilot program from PayPal allows Home Depot customers to pay with a mobile wallet

PayPal, an eBay company, is preparing to make its first announcements about a new partnership that it has started with Home Depot Inc., which will allow the home improvement chain’s customers to use its new mobile wallet system to pay for purchases, in direct competition with credit cards from Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.

According to a PayPal spokesperson, Anuj Nayar, this new deal between the two giants represents the first time that PayPal has achieved a retail partnership that will allow consumers to make payments using e-commerce tools at in-store terminals.

The progress that PayPal has made in mobile has helped it to become one of the fastest growing branches of eBay. It is currently working to continue its expansion by breaking away from conventional payment systems. To do this, it has created a mobile wallet system, which allows consumers to store their credit, debit, or special PayPal card information on their smartphones so that they can use that device to pay for purchase at a store’s checkout counter.

The Home Depot will be making this service available to its customers later on in 2012 as a part of a pilot project for the service.

Wedge Partners Corp. analyst, Brian Blair, said that PayPal is known for its services in the online payment environment, and it is now branching out into the real world using Home Depot, which has a “significant reach”.

According to Nayar, a handful of employees from PayPal are already using the payment system at five Home Depot stores in order to test it out.