Charismatic Dan Schulman who oversees the daily affairs of giant payment platform PayPal discusses the possibility of adopting digital wallets for the doling out of Stimulus Package payments.
On Wednesday, while speaking on an investor call that followed PayPal’s Q2 earnings release, the CEO proposed using digital wallets to help streamline the current payment process, arguing that would it not be more efficient but reduce fees for the poorest recipients. Schulman said
“Imagine not having to send out stimulus checks but sending those directly into a digital wallet where you instantaneously receive it, and you don’t have to go to a check cash-in location and exchange that and get charged for that exchange,”
The CEO further referenced the US government using a central bank digital currency CBDC for the purpose of distributing Stimulus Package to citizens which could then be distributed for this purpose. Although the United States is one of the most industrialised countries with the most advanced financial systems, it still has a lot of its citizens and residents categorised as “unbanked.”. Schulaman acknowledged this noting that it would take a massive coordinated effort to introduce digital wallets in a country like the United States.
Schulman however touts that the benefits of the US adopting digital wallets for the disbursing of massive pay-outs such as Stimulus payments will have a huge pay-off helping by lowering costs for both the federal and state governments as well as for individuals.
While speaking with Decrypt Media on a call, Dan Schulman decried the outdated system currently in practice engaged in by both affluent and poor Americans in moving money between banks.
“I mean the other day, I sent an [Electronic Funds Transfer] from one bank to another bank, and that bank told me we’re taking three days to access that money on the EFT I sent. That’s crazy. It needs to be instantaneous,”
Clearly Dan Schulman’s suggestions as to the United States government adopting digital wallet for doling out Stimulus payments stems from self-interests as his company PayPal is building a digital wallet and has been in talks with several nations’ central banks as to launching their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). PayPal possesses the requisite technology and IP to help nations onboard their CBDC as well adopting the digital wallets to make it adopted by its citizens.
Meanwhile, Dan Schulman’s suggestions will not be the first in this area of adopting digital wallets for distributing Stimulus payments. Square, the payment company led by Jack Dorsey confirmed it is building a Bitcoin hardware wallet this year but has been in a frantic race to woo the US government adopting its payment infrastructure such as CashApp for the purpose of disbursing Stimulus package payments too. Coinbase, Venmo and Robinhood are also contenders looking to assist the US government while cementing their usage among citizens also.
Beyond just digital wallets for use in distributing Stimulus payments, Dan Schulman also touched DeFi saying
“How can we use smart contracts more efficiently? How can we digitise assets and open those up to consumers that may not have had access to that before? There are some interesting DFI applications as well.”