The online payment war is shaping up, I guess. Remember Apple recently launched Apple Pay and some people are viewing the recently announced Ebay-Paypal split as a ploy for PayPal to take on Apple Pay.

Paypal will split from Ebay, ending a 12 year union, seeing it being listed as a separate publicly traded company. This move creates two simple companies which are more focused and with better objectives. This means we are going to see a better organised Paypal that is ready to shine in the rising ecosystem of digital wallets and mobile payments.

Mobile is the future. And even money is going mobile. The greatest success of mobile money we have witnessed in the world is M-Pesa. But in this article we already saw it is almost impossible for Apple Pay to threaten M-Pesa. However, this move to split Paypal, as many have agreed ( e.g. here and here) will push the mobile and internet war further.

M-pesa will be threatened if they behave like Nokia and refuse to adapt to the coming changes. They should in the near future release an open API. “Developers have been eagerly awaiting the release of the API as local innovators seek to tap into the successful platform and develop new products that can increase the scope to which products from M-Pesa can be used by businesses to streamline payment“.

The same way the smartwatch revolution is shaping up is the same way mobile money is. Forms of payment are coming up to compete against each other. Who will win eventually? Well for one, no one will the way I see it. We will have to work with all. Apple Pay may be good for you at a certain time, Paypal at another or Mpesa at other times.