More than 500,000 small and medium sized businesses will now be able to accept mobile payments in-store from up to 5.5 million active Australian PayPal users, following a historic partnership between Tyro Payments and PayPal.

Called Tyro Mobile, the new payment solution gives Australia’s small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) the capability to meet exploding consumer demand for mobile payment facilities via the PayPal Australia consumer app.

“Australians increasingly want to pay for purchases quickly and conveniently and Tyro’s partnership means those with the PayPal app can now use their smart phones to do so in a second,” Tyro CEO Jost Stollmann says.

“Studies have shown that 61 per cent of Australians are keen to pay with their mobile in a store but only a third (36 per cent) of Australian merchants accept mobile payments.

“We champion small and medium sized merchants and our technology gives them the ability to compete with big players in their markets, like Coles and McDonalds, and to become more appealing to consumer needs.”

Stollmann says that with more than 5.5 million active PayPal account holders already in Australia, a large portion of whom regularly use the PayPal app, the uptake of Tyro Mobile by merchants had enormous potential.

“PayPal is the operating system for digital payments and partnerships like this one with Tyro Mobile allow us to extend our offering to Australian businesses of all sizes,” says Emma Hunt, director of SMB, PayPal Australia.

“We’ve seen widespread acceptance of our consumer app amongst our more than 5.5 million active Australian users and are excited that Tyro Mobile’s merchants can now connect with our customers by facilitating PayPal payments in-store.”

Lionel Asseraf, owner of café and bistro Metro St James, in Sydney’s Hyde Park, is an early adopter of Tyro Mobile. “We’re very customer focused, we want to provide a great service. If our customers want to pay in this way, we want them to be able to,” he says.

Research has found Australian smartphone users’ top reasons to pay with their mobiles in store are:

• It’s a convenient way to pay (32 per cent)
• It’s a fast way to pay (27 per cent)
• I do not need to carry or pull out a physical wallet, when my details are stored (22 per cent)
• It’s easier than paying by cash or card (19 per cent).

Tyro Mobile means Tyro’s merchants are ready to accept mobile payments made from digital wallets like PayPal today and from other payment types in the future such as Samsung Pay.

“Because we are a technology leader, Tyro’s merchants are confident they’ll be ready for digital wallets and other mobile-based payment types when they reach these shores,” says Andrew Rothwell, Tyro co-founder and VP sales.

The PayPal App allows customers to search for local stores, check in and pay at the counter with a swipe of the finger. There are other features including balance tracking, and P2P money transfers and it is available on Apple and Android devices.