Braintree Launches Mobile Marketplace Solution to Fuel Innovation in Rising Collaborative Economy

CHICAGO, Aug. 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile phones and tablets are fast becoming consumers' primary computing devices and are fueling the growth of marketplaces that ease everyday tasks from finding a ride to hiring a painter. Braintree, the global payment platform behind the best next-generation online and mobile purchasing experiences—including Airbnb, Angry Birds, Fab, Hotel Tonight and Uber—today launched Marketplace, simplifying how marketplace owners pay and manage a number of sellers while decreasing administrative and regulatory burdens. TaskRabbit, a website and mobile app that allows people to outsource their tasks to fully vetted and background checked people, is the first company to benefit from this end-to-end payment experience that enables buying and selling within its marketplace to happen entirely from a mobile device.

"Given the rapidly growing ability to access everything from a mobile device, consumers are quickly gravitating to next-generation marketplaces and collaborative consumption models," said Bill Ready, CEO, Braintree. "We created Marketplace so that our customers can keep growing their communities with far less regulatory burden and their users, both buyers and sellers, can easily transact via their mobile devices."

One of the biggest challenges for marketplaces is handling the flow of money between the marketplace, seller and buyer. Historically, the marketplace would stand in the middle of the transaction – claiming funds from the buyer, validating the seller's bank account information and delivering the funds to the seller – subjecting the marketplace to compliance and regulatory issues as well as administrative complexity.  The fact that many marketplaces are inherently mobile makes it even more difficult to gather complicated financial information from users on the move.

With Marketplace, buyers are able to pay in a single touch and sellers can receive money directly on their mobile devices.  The money flow is managed by Braintree so the marketplace operator never touches the funds, alleviating many compliance and regulatory burdens. Braintree also handles 1099 tax reporting, allowing the marketplace to focus on innovation and growth rather than handling IRS requirements.

"Braintree has helped us solve complex issues related to paying our TaskRabbits, ensuring the flow of money is seamless for all of our members," said Ben Lingard, head of trust and safety, TaskRabbit. "Marketplace gives flexibility to our clients and TaskRabbits to choose how they pay and get paid allowing us to focus our efforts on our growth."

Inspired by working with collaborative consumption pioneers like TaskRabbit, Uber and Airbnb, Braintree developed a first-of-its-kind solution designed to seamlessly connect the merchant, sellers and consumers on a mobile device to fuel marketplace innovation. From signup to checkout, Marketplace removes previous challenges marketplaces faced and reduces friction for sellers and buyers. New sellers never leave the merchant's site and can instantly sign up to be paid out the next day through Venmo – without bank account and routing information – or to a bank account via ACH transfer within two days. Similarly, buyers can make purchases in one touch, without entering their credit card information, using Venmo Touch.

Marketplace is easy for developers to implement through Braintree's API. Merchants can customize how and when they pay their community members and specify collection fees on every transaction. For example, Marketplace allows merchants to tailor payments according to their business models either by holding payments in escrow until goods are shipped or disbursing funds immediately.

Marketplace is available immediately to Braintree customers at no additional cost. For additional details, visit: www.braintreepayments.com/marketplace.

About Braintree
A catalyst for the next-generation of commerce, Braintree provides the easiest way to pay and get paid across any device. Braintree's global payment platform processes more than $10 billion annually (with more than $2 billion on mobile) for thousands of online and mobile commerce innovators including Airbnb, Fab, LivingSocial, OpenTable and Uber. Merchants in more than 40 countries throughout North America, Europe and Australia can accept payments in more than 130 currencies using Braintree. Today, Braintree powers single-click purchasing for more than 40 million consumers and its top-rated mobile app, Venmo, gives people an easy way to pay using their mobile device. To learn more, visit Braintree at www.braintreepayments.com and on Twitter @braintree.

SOURCE Braintree