Big finance sweating Apple Pay intrusion, consolidating payment services
Barclays is reportedly having trouble attracting users to its BPay mobile payments system and the Pingit app in the United Kingdom, due to competition from Apple Pay and other competitors, with the bank allegedly preparing to merge the two services into one.
Barclays' BPay system used watches, wrist bands, keyfobs, and even stickers to perform contactless payments
The two Barclays-produced services have not met the same sort of reaction from consumers as that of Apple Pay and others, which has prompted a rethink from the major bank. As part of the solution, Barclays intends to bring its less popular service BPay to be under the Pingit app, consolidating the two separate services into one.
In the United Kingdom, Pingit has managed to achieve a user base of 3.6 million people, a Barclays spokeswoman advised to Bloomberg. By contrast, BPay has users "in the high tens of thousands," effectively making it a failure in a relatively crowded payments market.
"We acknowledge that Pingit has many more users than bPay, but that's because bPay has built the UK wearables category from scratch, and the category itself is still in its infancy," Barclay's spokesperson Oliver Stevenson said in a statement to AppleInsider "The reason we are merging the two services is because we want to establish Pingit as our primary mobile payments brand, and we want to give Pingit users the wearables functionality currently enjoyed by our bPay customers, and vice versa."
Introduced in the UK in 2014, before the launch of Apple Pay in the country, BpPy allowed users to buy wearable devices that could be preloaded with funds for performing contactless payments, without requiring the use of a mobile device or a credit or debit card. Barclays partnered with watch brands including Timex and Guess to create wearables using BPay.
Once merged, BPay users will use the Pingit app to manage their accounts and their accessories.
Pingit has found success in allowing users to easily send money to each other, and in the UK has a direct competitor in the form of Paypal. It does not directly compete against Apple Pay in that market, as Apple Pay Cash is not available in the UK at the moment.
The bringing together of the two services is a sign traditional financial institutions are attempting to adapt to a payments market that has become saturated with new major players, such as Apple and Google. The increase of app-based consumer banking, such as Monzo, is also making it harder for high street banks to compete, due to the app banks able to fit more easily into a user's life, rather than requiring occasional visits to a physical location to manage their finances.
Barclays CEO Jess Staley believes the banking industry will face challenges against the influx of loosely-regulated opponents, such as Apple and Amazon, declaring in October 2017 that mobile payments is "the battleground of finance over the next 15 years." Barclays has already taken steps to counter the threat to its business, by partnering with PayPal in April 2019 to explore ways Pingit and Paypal could work together.
Barclays' BPay system used watches, wrist bands, keyfobs, and even stickers to perform contactless payments
The two Barclays-produced services have not met the same sort of reaction from consumers as that of Apple Pay and others, which has prompted a rethink from the major bank. As part of the solution, Barclays intends to bring its less popular service BPay to be under the Pingit app, consolidating the two separate services into one.
In the United Kingdom, Pingit has managed to achieve a user base of 3.6 million people, a Barclays spokeswoman advised to Bloomberg. By contrast, BPay has users "in the high tens of thousands," effectively making it a failure in a relatively crowded payments market.
"We acknowledge that Pingit has many more users than bPay, but that's because bPay has built the UK wearables category from scratch, and the category itself is still in its infancy," Barclay's spokesperson Oliver Stevenson said in a statement to AppleInsider "The reason we are merging the two services is because we want to establish Pingit as our primary mobile payments brand, and we want to give Pingit users the wearables functionality currently enjoyed by our bPay customers, and vice versa."
Introduced in the UK in 2014, before the launch of Apple Pay in the country, BpPy allowed users to buy wearable devices that could be preloaded with funds for performing contactless payments, without requiring the use of a mobile device or a credit or debit card. Barclays partnered with watch brands including Timex and Guess to create wearables using BPay.
Once merged, BPay users will use the Pingit app to manage their accounts and their accessories.
Pingit has found success in allowing users to easily send money to each other, and in the UK has a direct competitor in the form of Paypal. It does not directly compete against Apple Pay in that market, as Apple Pay Cash is not available in the UK at the moment.
The bringing together of the two services is a sign traditional financial institutions are attempting to adapt to a payments market that has become saturated with new major players, such as Apple and Google. The increase of app-based consumer banking, such as Monzo, is also making it harder for high street banks to compete, due to the app banks able to fit more easily into a user's life, rather than requiring occasional visits to a physical location to manage their finances.
Barclays CEO Jess Staley believes the banking industry will face challenges against the influx of loosely-regulated opponents, such as Apple and Amazon, declaring in October 2017 that mobile payments is "the battleground of finance over the next 15 years." Barclays has already taken steps to counter the threat to its business, by partnering with PayPal in April 2019 to explore ways Pingit and Paypal could work together.
Comments
GREAT!!
I bet there is an article somewhere of a CEO mocking Apple and laughing about ApplePay calling it a failure. Happens every damn time.
Apple really needs to show people how secure ApplePay is also. I know iKnockoff users who think SamsungPay is the same thing. It's not. If people understood that ApplePay is the most secure payment method in the world, we would have even more users and retailers on board.
Visa is also raising rates...
They better watch out or they’re going to lose out to Apple Pay.
What’s not clear is how Apple Pay makes Apple money...
I assume they also collect data on purchases to better figure out how to target customers (internal only, of course, not to use like FB and Google for sale).
edit: 0.15%.
.15%?
Wow what a greedy company! /s
Apple should get a fixed fee per transaction processed, like e.g. 15 cent, whatever the amount of the payment is.
edit: They're certainly getting some data, even if specific card data isn't being funnel to them.
Apple isn't secure because they know how much they charge? Use a less secure method then? So Apple should get 15 cents when someone buys a TV or car?
You couldn't make this crap up......
I know the ABN-AMRO Bank dismissed its entire IT staff to outsource it to Bangalore ... several times.
The Dutch conglomerate of Banks, in its wisdom, create the ultimate digital age pay method: the chipknip.
After 20 years or so they quietly removed it from service, because after countless millions of euros and countless years noone was using it, because it was utterly impractical. Like money without its value printed on it (you had to check its value at a ‘nearby’ cash dispenser (it was impossible to check in a store).
Needless to say that still no one has a clue why this system failed.
People are actually buying cars with Apple Pay. I'm being easy on the kid.
Remember this?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/16/10/21/most-expensive-in-app-purchase-ever-apple-pay-used-to-buy-1-million-aston-martin
2) That is most likely done via accounting from the financial institutions.