Braintree Introduces Instant Approval For Online And Mobile Payments

Braintree, the privately held Chicago-based e-commerce and payments service company that powers the monetization behind such popular apps and software companies as Uber, Arbnb, LivingSocial and “Angry Birds” creator Rovio Entertainment, is introducing a new instant approval to speed up its entire payment and sign-up service. Called “Braintree Instant,” the update promises that developers will now be able to begin accepting payments just 30 minutes after registration.

Registering and integrating Braintree’s payment service only took 30 minutes in the past, but the approval process for merchants and online or mobile app creators could take a few days given the red tape behind managing any new account. Braintree has understandably felt the sting of competition as new mobile companies like Square and Stripe are making a splash in Silicon Valley and beyond. Older pioneers of e-commerce and digital marketplaces like eBay Inc.’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) PayPal and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) have also begun to advance their own alternatives to remain relevant in this emerging market.  

Braintree is therefore attempting to partially rebrand itself to separate from the pack in what is becoming an increasingly crowded marketplace of digital payment services. Traditionally, businesses tend to scale their payment systems along with the rest of their operations as they grow. A developer may use PayPal when they first release a product, for example, but later switch to a service like Authorize.net, or even to Cybersource and Chase Paymentech further down the road.

“Payment aggregators allow for fast access, but typically only work for small merchants because they introduce the possibility of painful service disruptions if a merchant’s volume grows,” Braintree said today in a statement on the company blog.

“Traditional merchant accounts, on the other hand, are a better tool for merchants that either have meaningful volume or intend to scale to meaningful volume,” the statement continued.

Braintree now wants to be able to do both. With its new service, the company is hoping to offer developers a unique payment tool that will scale with companies as they expand.

“With Braintree’s instant application,” the statement then said, “merchants are approved and ready to accept payments immediately, with their own merchant account, but with the peace of mind that they have all the capabilities they need as their business grows. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Presently, Braintree Instant is only available for developers in the U.S., but the statement said that it will open to international developers in the coming months.

Braintree is also offering a new flat 2.9 percent fee plus $.30 per transaction and is also cutting the time it takes for merchants to get funds to two days. The company is now doing almost $5 billion in annual processing volume and has more than 2,000 merchants.