EBay buys Braintree for $800M

EBay Inc., parent company of PayPay, is buying Chicago-based credit card software company Braintree Inc. for roughly $800 million, according to Crain's Chicago Business.

The cash deal is the biggest acquisition of a Chicago software firm since 2009, when IBM Corp. picked up SPSS Inc. for $1.2 billion, Crain’s reported.

The move eliminates a competitor for PayPal. Braintree, which now processes $4 billion in mobile payments annually, built its business model around being a faster, more flexible option than PayPal for accepting credit card payments online. Braintree CEO Bill Ready will report to San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal President David Marcus, according to Crain’s, but Braintree will keep its headquarters in Chicago.

Read more at Crain's Chicago Business.