Zapp Rolling Out Mobile Payment Service with Five UK Banks
- Wednesday, January 15th, 2014
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Zapp has partnered with five UK financial services firms – HSBC, First Direct, Nationwide, Santander and Metro Bank – to roll out its mobile payments service, which is set to launch in autumn of this year.
Integrated into existing banking apps, Zapp enables customers to make secure real-time payments to merchants from within the app using a digital token – meaning they don’t need to input their bank account details while shopping.
The financial institutions Zapp has partnered with represent a combined customer base of 18m, and more than a third of all UK bank accounts.
Making an impact
Mobile payments is already a crowded market, and no single offering has yet made a significant impact, but according to CMO Justin Basini, Zapps strength lies in its close integration with the banks themselves.
“From a consumer point of view, theres nothing to download,” Basini told Mobile Marketing. “It doesnt require the user to download a different third-party app, learn any new passwords or user names or register for anything new. And because its integrated with the banks, you can see your account balance before you make a payment.”
Zapps approach also means improved security, Basini says, as only the financial institutions have access to the users account details – and all payments will be covered by similar protections to those for debit cards.
That integration is at least partly a result of Zapps position as a subsidiary of Vocalink, the national payments operator joint owned by 18 banks and building societies in the UK. But, Basini points out, “Zapp was set up quite separately – we have a separate team, management, and office – and as with any new business, weve had to persuade banks and other financial companies one-by-one to launch something new.”