Barclays Readies ‘Buyit’ QR Code-Based M-Payment Service (June 25, 2013)
June 25, 2013
Barclays is taking contactless payment in a new direction with a service enabling users to make payments directly from their bank accounts by tapping their phones on QR codes on billboards, magazine ads and other printed items, potentially including routine bill payments. Harnessing the Barclays Pingit mobile payments app, the new Buyit service reportedly will roll out soon, riding on Britain’s Faster Payments platform, a bank-to-bank electronic payments platform.
Pingit, introduced last year, is a P2P payments app available to any U.K. bank customer over age 16 for sending and receiving money using mobile phone numbers; Pingit is available for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices. Pingit—and now Buyit—demonstrate some of the emerging consumer applications of Faster Payments, which launched in May 2008 and has 10 participating financial services institutions. The service enables immediate bank-to-bank payments via Internet, phone and internal bank systems. More than 85 percent of the U.K.’s phone and Internet payment traffic harnesses the service, which typically delivers payments within a couple of hours.
In other news, Barclays raised hackles this month when it informed its U.K. customers of plans to begin sharing information about their financial transactions with third parties. The only way to opt out is to close their accounts, according to a letter Barclays mailed to approximately 13 million of its retail banking customers. Barclays reportedly also said it will use “location data derived from any mobile device details you have given us,” and noted that it plans to use the information on an anonymized basis to track spending and other trends.
