AT&T Distributes "PayPal Here"

PayPal Here, PayPal's point of sale dongle for smart phones and tablets,  is now available at 1,800 AT&T retail stores across the United States. 

You might wonder why AT&T would do so, since it is not a formal partner of PayPal Here in other respects. In fact, the move is not directly part of the Isis mobile wallet service, either. 

AT&T began selling the Square mobile point of sale dongle in August 2012 as well. 

The obvious upside for AT&T is that Square and PayPal Here dongles only can be used on Apple iPhone and Android smart phones, and that the availability of the dongles helps AT&T sell some incremental number of devices and service plans, to customers who generally represent higher average revenue per account.

At the same time, the move better positions AT&T as a supplier of small business mobile solutions.