PortaPayments is a brilliant little idea: it’s an Android app that creates QR codes for PayPal payments. Scanning one of these QR codes takes you to PayPal with the recipient and amount all filled out. Manually approve the payment and you’re done.

This enables mobile payments (create the code on your phone and the customer scans it with their phone) as well as allowing you to use the QR code images as, say, a tip jar on a website, or printed on an invoice.  Lots of possibilities: I can imagine a charity printing up posters or handbills that include PortaPayment codes so people can easily make a donation.

One hitch I found in testing the app is that the PortaPayments app must be used to scan the codes;other barcode scanners will not work correctly. If the developer can address this issue, businesses would be more apt to use it.

The developer has entered the app in the PayPal Developers Challenge. If you like the idea, give him a vote between now and the end of Friday, March 5.

Please enter the url to a YouTube video.