Mobile payment service Pingit, run by Barclays Bank, has been used to paid the £23,000 deposit on a house in South London, in what is believed to be a first for mobile payments. The payment was made following the creation of a partnership between Barclays and specialist property auctioneers Savills Auctions that will let customers buy houses on their mobile phones.
Using Barclays Pingit, a Savills Auctions customer can now put down a deposit on a home by scanning a Savills QR code from within the Pingit app. The app will then show the full transaction details name and once the customer selects the ‘OK’ option, the money is transferred in seconds.
Sam Winser, Associate, Savills Auctions explains why this is more than just a marketing gimmick for both Savills and Barclays: “Creating a service that allows a buyer to put down a deposit and transfer the money in a matter of seconds, such as Pingit, is really making a big difference to our speed and efficiency, allowing us to do more business, more quickly. It gives buyers the ability to send and for us to receive guaranteed funds immediately, which is obviously hugely advantageous.”
Since it launched in February 2012, Barclays Pingit has been downloaded 2.5 million times and the total amount of money sent using the service has reached £350 million. The Centre for Economic and Business Research predicts that, by 2020, 20 million adults will use their mobiles to pay for goods and services and that the total value of mobile payments will reach £18.1 billion by 2018 (the combined value of all mobile payments and bank-to-bank transfers).
While the majority of mobile payment systems are being used to split bills in restaurants or to send money to family members – a son or daughter at University for example – Barclays has been working on a variety of innovative applications for Pingit in retail and beyond.
In 2013, Pingit was updated to include a QR code reader that enabled shoppers to buy items simply by scanning a code – for example in an advert or in a shop – to make a payment and have items sent direct to their home address. Barclays Pingit is also being embraced by a growing number of small businesses that want to be able to accept mobile payments but don’t want to invest in credit card payments systems.
Darren Foulds, Barclays Mobile Banking and Pingit Product Director adds: “This shows the potential for mobile payments as services like Pingit gain more widespread use. For quick, secure transactions on the go, mobile is fast-becoming a trusted method of making payments – whether from person-to-person or, as in this case, to pay a business.
He continues: “For businesses large or small, Pingit enables payments to be accepted through a mobile app. For consumers it offers a totally secure way of making payments that are at the same time quick – and on a device that almost everyone in the UK carries with them on a permanent basis.”
