PayDirect
Former money transfer service
Yahoo! PayDirect was the name of a person-to-person money transfer service by Yahoo! via HSBC, competing with Billpoint and PayPal.
Yahoo launched PayDirect in March 2000 after purchasing Arthas.com, a provider of electronic billing services. Arthas' dotBank.com service allowed customers to make online bill payments and to exchange money with other customers. When Yahoo took over the site, the accounts were managed by the international bank HSBC.
In 2000, Yahoo extended the Yahoo PayDirect service to mobile phones, as part of its Yahoo Everywhere initiative.
Yahoo PayDirect was initially launched with CIBC National Bank as the financial partner (based in Maitland, Florida, and a subsidiary of CIBC - one of the major Canadian banks).
“PayDirect” enters the record as former money transfer service. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what PayDirect, Former and money can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“PayDirect” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, PayDirect, Former and money provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7156551. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2000.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “PayDirect”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow PayDirect primary sources, PayDirect archive and PayDirect research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “PayDirect”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “PayDirect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.