(9 May 2016 – United Kingdom) Barclays has announced a partnership with Bottomline Technologies to offer UK companies a platform with which to send payments instantly to customers using their mobile phone number.
A range of businesses will be able to make instant payments, such as refunds, to consumers directly without needing their bank account details.
For consumers, cash payments for can be made almost immediately, while business will not have to handle sensitive bank account information in order to pay their customers.
Barclays said that the tie-up between its Pingit app, which allows account holders at any bank to “ping” money to other individuals and businesses through their mobile phone number, and Bottomline, a provider of corporate payment services, is aimed at making it easy for companies to offer an instant payments service to customers.
Companies and consumers must be registered with Pingit, or Paym, which is similar to Pingit but run by the UK’s large high street banks and building societies. Both Pingit and Paym cover about 5 million accounts across the UK.
According to Payments UK, more than 40 million consumers are eligible to register their mobile phone number for Paym, representing over 90 percent of UK current accounts.
Barclays had unveiled its “Pingit for corporates” service a year ago and has already gathered a number of customers, but it required businesses to implement it themselves within their payment systems — costing time and money. The partnership with Bottomline means Pingit and Paym can be easily set up on a company’s existing payments infrastructure.
The Barclays tie-up comes as the UK’s payments watchdog is attempting to spur such innovation as a way to boost the economy and support consumers.
Hannah Nixon, managing director of the Payment Systems Regulator, earlier this year, that she wanted to encourage digital developments to “drive improvements for users”.
“In fact, we want the UK industry to become a centre of innovation, to lead the world in the development of payments systems,” she said.