On quite another scale (compared to yesterdays announcement in Belgium), Reuters informs us that Skype will soon be offering payments, using Paypal technology. Both organisations are within the eBay umbrella of companies and the product will be revealed within a months' time. Planet Internet's assessment is that it is technically a quite simple integration effort, aimed at gaining further foothold in the migrant money market.
Yet, to gain real commercial foothold in that market, I think the Paypal/Skype proposition requires a reloadable pre-paid Visa or Mastercard (to be funded from the Paypal account). Everyone can then send money to the holder of that card who can withdraw money worldwide. Although I can also imagine a bunch of anit-money-laundering reasons for not going this last mile....
