Stan Beer
Saturday, 19 April 2008 07:23
Opinion and Analysis
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The role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is to regulate for free and open competition in the marketplace and to protect consumers. There is a viable competitor to PayPal that protects eBay consumers. That is just one reason why the ACCC cannot allow the intention of eBay Australia to accept payments only through its PayPal subsidiary.
From a competition perspective, eBay Australia
knows it does not have a leg to stand on. However, the online auction
site has written to the ACCC asking for immunity from prosecution under
the Trade Practices Act, the argument being PayPal will provide greater
protection for consumers.
The argument is nonsense and therefore should be rejected if the ACCC does the job it has been mandated to do.
There is at least one viable competitor in the Australian marketplace
that provides a similar service to PayPal. Australian-based financial
transactions clearing house,
Paymate, has been operating since 2001.
Like PayPal in Australia, Paymate, which is based in Sydney, holds an
accredited Australian Financial Services License, and is widely used by
buyers and sellers on rival auction sites to eBay Australia, such as
Oztion. In fact, it was the service initially
promoted by eBay Australia before the global company acquired PayPal.
Naturally, Paymate is dismayed at eBay’s attempt to shut it out of the
auction site and has lodged public protests to all who will bother to
listen.
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