As several sources wrote last week, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) will start its own online payment system that will put it into competition with eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY) PayPal and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) CheckOut service. Although CheckOut is not a large business for Google, PayPal is a very large revenue source for eBay.
The new product will be called Amazon Flexible Payments Service, according to MarketWatch.
The investors in eBay have reason to watch the development closely. PayPal revenue rose 34% last quarter to $454 million. The unit had almost 36 million active accounts at the end of the June 30 period.
While Google's major business is not as likely to funnel customers to become users of an online payment system, Amazon's retail customers might well use its systems if it become part of the standard e-commerce operations at the company's websites.
That could give eBay fits.
Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 247wallst.com.
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