MasterCard is not shy about challenging innovative incumbents — after all, it launched Simplify Commerce in June 2013 to compete with both Stripe and Square.
Today it introduced MasterCard Send, a P2P solution seemingly targeting businesses and governments — “seemingly” because the page for the service, at press time, was down.
[UPDATE: Here is the correct link for the page, sent by MasterCard.]
But enough details can be gleaned from the video below and infographic to make it clear the company has PayPal, and perhaps the wider P2P/remittances/disbursements in its sights. It is explicitly taking on “slow, costly checks and Automated Clearing House transactions” — but not credit card payments, apparently.
That this is being launched just as PayPal preps its initial public offering makes it all the more startling. Granted, MasterCard no doubt had considered a P2P payment platform for, well, as long as PayPal has been around, but still. It joins Visa in offering P2P functionality. Fortune reports Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection and FreeShipping.com as being among the first customers of Send.
PayPal’s IPO is expected in the third quarter.