On Friday, it was announced on PayPal Inc's blog that the company recently bought Fig Card Corp., which is a company that makes a USB stick that other businesses can then use to accept payments via smart phones.

With this acquisition, the two co-founders of Fig Card Corp. will remain with the company.

A YouTube demonstration of how the Fig Card technology works gives the example of a consumer who wants to make a purchase at a bakery. In this situation, the consumer walks into the bakery and orders the traditional way by telling the merchant what they would like. During that time the consumer also runs the Fig Card application on their phone, and then clicks the read to pay button. After this the merchant is sent a photo of the person on their point-of-sales system to verify identity. After that the consumer accepts the charges with the simply press of a button on their phone, and then the purchase is completed and recorded on both the phone and also the merchant's point-of-sales system.

PayPal announcing the decision to purchase Fig Card Corp. also comes a little more than a week after its parent company eBay Inc. announced plans to acquire a company called WHERE that develops online location-based services that allows a consumer to search for local shopping deals through their mobile devices.

With these two recent purchases, consumers may find themselves in the future being able to search for local deals through their phone, and then making purchases at those local stores with just two quick touches of a button on their phone.

Source: Austin Business Journal, "PayPal buys mobile startup Fig Card," 29 April 2011