Most press releases and announcements fail to pass the ‘so what’ test. They might be important to the client company but they are often dull and uninteresting.

Then along comes a release that tells of things that will really make a difference. And here is one of these gems:

NCR Corporation and PayPal, Inc., today announced an agreement to integrate NCR’s innovative mobile solutions for hospitality and retail with PayPal’s leading digital payment technology. The combination provides restaurants and retailers an easy, powerful way to offer consumers a rich mobile and digital payment experience when buying the goods and services they want.

This could prove to be significant partnership: NCR have the retail footprint and PayPal have the payment technology. The industry footprint of each company is significant but they lacked an end to end solution. This agreement seems to fix that.

Here is the full announcement:

NCR and PayPal Working Together to Make Everyday Easier for Consumers When Dining Out and Shopping

NCR’s broad hospitality and retail footprint coupled with more than 117 million PayPal customers offers scale to accelerate adoption of mobile-enhanced consumer shopping and payments

NCR Corporation and PayPal, Inc., an eBay company, today announced an agreement to integrate NCR’s innovative mobile solutions for hospitality and retail with PayPal’s leading digital payment technology. The combination provides restaurants and retailers an easy, powerful way to offer consumers a rich mobile and digital payment experience when buying the goods and services they want.

“Combining NCR’s broad hospitality and retail footprint with PayPal’s global customer base enables restaurants and retailers to redesign the consumer experience with mobile-enhanced shopping and payments while materially improving business processes and creating seamless consumer experiences across touch points, locations, and channels.”

“As a global technology leader across multiple industries, NCR is committed to partner with organizations that seek to maximize the adoption of digital wallets and mobile payments to help our customers provide more choice, greater control, and increased flexibility for their consumers,” said John Bruno, CTO and EVP at NCR. “Combining NCR’s broad hospitality and retail footprint with PayPal’s global customer base enables restaurants and retailers to redesign the consumer experience with mobile-enhanced shopping and payments while materially improving business processes and creating seamless consumer experiences across touch points, locations, and channels.”

Today’s consumer wants to leverage technology in an integrated way to make everyday life easier. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2013 Restaurant Industry Forecast, restaurant guests are seeking more and better tableside technology. 44 percent of consumers surveyed say they would use a tableside ordering system, nearly one-third would use mobile payment options and 50 percent would use smartphone apps for viewing menus, ordering or making reservations. However, less than 10 percent of table service restaurants currently offer these options according to the research.

“Consumers and retailers want choice when it comes to purchasing and making payments as the lines between shopping online and in-the-store are rapidly disappearing,” said Don Kingsborough, PayPal’s vice president of Retail and Prepaid. “We couldn’t be more excited about working with NCR to combine their innovative software and hardware solutions with our industry-leading digital payment technology. PayPal is at the forefront of digital and mobile payments, constantly striving to remove friction for merchants and consumers to deliver a better shopping experience.”

A recent global survey from NCR* found that 52 percent of consumers want the option of using mobile technology to scan and pay for items while shopping, yet only 12 percent of retailers currently provide this for customers. Together, NCR and PayPal will enable restaurants and retailers to seamlessly integrate their point-of-sale (POS) technology with the consumer’s digital wallet.

NCR’s customer base includes 8 of the 10 fastest-growing Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and fast casual restaurant chains, 1.2 million retail POS systems and more than 100,000 self-checkout units. PayPal’s global customer base includes 117 million accounts, and has forecasted it will process $10 billion in mobile payment volume in 2012.

Initially, NCR and PayPal will integrate PayPal mobile payment options into the recently announced NCR Mobile Pay application and NCR Aloha Online Ordering. Designed for the more than 60,000 restaurant sites using NCR Aloha point-of-sale technology, NCR Mobile Pay enables restaurant patrons with a smartphone to browse their bill, re-order menu items, alert their server, complete surveys and pay. With the new integration, PayPal appears as a payment option and allows consumers greater choice for secure payments alongside credit or debit card options. Consumers will also be able to use the PayPal mobile application to locate and “check in” at participating NCR Mobile Pay merchants to access the same functionality.

The companies are also working to integrate PayPal mobile payment options into NCR’s Convenience-Go (C-Go) application for petroleum and convenience stores. C-Go is a store-branded mobile application that allows shoppers to purchase fuel, food, car washes and other items right from the application. PayPal integration gives C-Go users another easy option for paying at the pump or inside stores with their smartphone while also providing stores with valuable opportunities for targeted up selling and promotions. Additionally, NCR and PayPal plan to enhance NCR’s Netkey Endless Aisle application with PayPal integration to speed up the consumer checkout process for consumers using the solution for online shopping in a physical store and create new revenue opportunities for retailers.

Beyond these initial solutions, initiatives are planned to integrate NCR’s Advanced Marketing Solution (AMS) loyalty and offer management system with the PayPal digital wallet. This integration will enable consumers to “check in” on their mobile devices as they start shopping to take advantage of shopping lists as well as digital redemption of coupons and special offers when they pay.