ustwo works with Barclays on mobile-to-mobile banking app
Digital consultancy ustwo has worked with Barclays to develop a new app which allows people to ‘text’ payments to each other by smartphone.
The Pingit service, which launches today, is available across all smartphone platforms to anyone with a UK current account and UK phone number, and works without sharing bank details.
Customers can register online or use the app, which links a user’s current account with their mobile phone number.
Barclays claims the service – which is the first of its kind in Europe – is as secure as any other and says that the app is protected by a five digit passcode set by the user.
A simple interface has been developed in the Barclays colourways, linking payment options with an SMS message facility which alerts the recipient that a payment has been made.
The Barclays app – which is a 20.04mb file – can be downloaded for free across the Apple App Store, BlackBerry App World, and Android Market.
Only Barclays customers can use the app to send money at the moment, but a second phase app will be released to allow non-Barclays customers to do the same.
Can’t imagine why anyone would want this. If you owe someone £10, just hand over the £10.
Pretty darn simple, and you don’t need a phone to do it.
This is such an excellently designed app. I’ve used an iPhone daily since the orignal model and I have never reviewed an app until now. For the first time, I have experienced an iPhone app that was genuinely a joy to use, from initial setup linking it to my account (which was quick, painless and actually fun) to sending and receiving money. Excellent work!
Well done Barclays for setting the standard! It’s about time more banks made use of smartphone technology for personal banking. Unfortunately a lot of banks still need a lot of work on their existing websites to improve the user experience and usability before they even attempt a mobile experience.
What Barclays’ Pingit (http://www.barclays.co.uk/pingit) does in Britain sounds very much like what Dwolla does here in the U.S., up to the pricing, because, while Pingit is free, Dwolla charges $0.10 per transaction above $10 (anything below that is free). The thing is that, if a British bank is doing it, soon enough its American cousins will start doing it too and I just don’t see how Dwolla could compete with them as a stand-alone service. After all, Dwolla has to charge something, however small the amount, while the banks apparently do not. For analysis: http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/barclays-pingit-shows-why-dwolla-like-start-ups-stand-no-chance