Why ACCC cannot grant eBay Australia request for PayPal only payments

By Stan Beer
Saturday, 19 April 2008 06:23

Opinion and Analysis

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. CONTINUED page 2