Paydiant Vs PayPal

Paydiant brings payments, offers, loyalty and ATM access to merchant and bank mobile apps, using the cloud to make retail smarter, faster and safer.

BAY CITY, MI – It was more than 30 years ago as a student at Bay City All Saints Central High School that entrepreneur Kevin Laracey first became interested in technology.

“It was one of the first places I was exposed to computers and software,” said Laracey, now 50 and the CEO of mobile payments provider Paydiant.

Software-controlled devices fascinated Laracey.

Today, Laracey is a tech-savvy entrepreneur who has founded two companies and reportedly sold them for hundreds of millions of dollars.

PayPal is acquiring Paydiant, a mobile payments provider Laracey co-founded several years ago.

“One of the new big markets that companies like PayPal and others are going after is how to let you as a consumer use your mobile phone to make payments in stores,” Kevin Laracey said.

Laracey grew up in a family of entrepreneurs in Bay County’s Bangor Township, where his mother, Jeanette Laracey, still resides.

When Kevin Laracey thinks about growing up in Bay County, he remembers spending time outdoors with his sister Nancy, brothers Bill and Mel and father Melvin “Bud” Laracey, especially visits to the family farm in Kawkawlin on weekends.

“Our father had his own business and our mother Jeanette came from an entrepreneurial family and was always very supportive of our entrepreneurial endeavors and interests,” Kevin Laracey said.

His father’s business was a house and machinery moving business called Carl J. Laracey & Sons House Moving Co. Bud Laracey died in 2011.

Laracey’s brothers bought and sold old sports cars, a more lucrative endeavor in the days before the Internet, he said.

After graduating from high school, Kevin Laracey went on to earn his bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1986.

Several years later, Laracey and his business partner Chris Gardner co-founded Paydiant.

Though he has built a life in the Boston area, Kevin Laracey said he comes back to Bay County to visit his mother at least once a year.

Jeannette Laracey appreciated his credit, but said it was her son that ran with the support she and her husband gave him growing up.

When asked what’s next for him, Kevin Laracey said, “We are going to be focusing 100 percent on helping PayPal achieve its goals and objectives. We are very fortunate to be a part of such an iconic and innovative American company.”

(Credits to Heather Jordan)

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