PayPal steps up efforts to join mobile payment industry

In its attempt to encourage more consumers to utilize their smartphone to deal with credit card debt, one of the world's leading online transaction processing networks recently purchased a mobile payment startup.

PayPal recently purchased the Boston, Massachusetts-based mobile payment startup Fig Card in an effort to expand its presence in the industry, according to a blog post by Peter Chu, senior director of PayPal Mobile. Fig Card developed a device that will allow consumers to load payment information on their smartphone, then use an application to take on credit card debt using the handset at any business that has an associated USB device manufactured by the company.

In particular, PayPal chose to buy the company because this payment method allows for greater "flexibility and privacy" when consumers choose to take on credit card debt than current pieces of plastic do, Chu wrote.

Even conservative estimates about the future of mobile payments are encouraging: companies that allow consumers to take on credit card debt using their smartphones will earn at least a combined $44 billion by 2015.