PayPal has recently announced their new mobile SDK. Uber is a mobile on demand taxi and black car service app which is the first to utilize PayPal’s new features offered by the SDK.

The SDK will allow app developers to integrate PayPal payments from within an app. Up until now, applications using PayPal as a payment option had to redirect the user to the PayPal app, or through a mobile browser to sign-in. The new SDK that is now available to select developers, allows for seamless integration of PayPal within a third party application and also allows it to store the account for future use.

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Uber is available for Android and iOS smartphones, and with its recent update offers PayPal as a payment option for Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and across the US.  As a promotion, anyone who uses PayPal to pay for an Uber ride between now and the 28^th of November will receive $15 off on a single ride.

“Enabling frictionless payment experiences is key for all of our new products, and innovation driven companies are taking notice. Companies focused on delighting their customers want to take advantage of the new PayPal capabilities, especially in mobile commerce. Uber is one of these companies.” added Stan Chudnovsky , VP of Growth, PayPal, on the new feature available to Uber users.

This is an innovative step for PayPal, and as an Ecommerce leader, shows the direction that mobile purchases are headed towards. Interestingly enough, PayPal decided to first offer the new feature to Uber, rather than their shopping application, eBay mobile. We can only guess that PayPal is currently fixing any bugs or issues before making the feature widely available. The new PayPal SDK will be made accessible to all developers in early 2014.