UK’s Paym a Sign of Growing Mobile Payments Acceptance

April 28, 2024 by

Image credit: Paym

Who wouldn’t love to make mobile payments with the click of just one button?

Surely we can all relate; the current process of inputting a password and sifting through our banks online system can be torture.

Okay… maybe it’s not that bad, but the truth is we’re all looking for an easier way to complete these transactions.

Well, what’s better than a one-button approach? Thanks to a new mobile payments program in the United Kingdom – “Paym” – the idea has become a reality, bringing with it a lengthy list of banks looking to jump onboard.

As reported by the Financial Times, the launch of Paym is stretching to new banks, allowing 30 million customers to make mobile payments to those on their mobile phone contact list by using just a cellphone number… to those who also utilize the Paym system, of course.

As it seems, the goal of this program is to bring a certain sense of ease and normalcy to the concept of mobile payments. Thinking about it, we pay for coffee with our phones; we order food with our phones; why not use this technology for another facet of our lives?

In other words, the normalcy of mobile payments may already be here.

Funded by contributing banks, the Paym system is a £100m initiative, which is said to “recognize the fundamental importance of payment via mobile as part of a suite of options [for customers]”, said Adrian Kamellard, Chief Executive of the Payments Council.

The current existing list of participating banks included in the system are Barclays, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and Santander, with others set to join up later this year – i.e. Clydesdale Bank, First Direct, Yorkshire Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The challenge behind mobile payments has mainly been the integrating with existing IT systems.

If gone awry, the outcome could be a very public system crash. However, this doesn’t seem to be stopping the masses from giving it a shot.

Yet while it appears there are a myriad of banks jumping at the Paym system, not everyone is holding high praise.

The Co-operative Bank, for example, has held strong as one of the small numbers of large account providers not signed up, stating they will monitor the Paym progress as they continue to consider the developments around mobile payments, all in order to ensure they develop the right improvements for customers.

Despite naysayers, mobile payment is a rising industry, and no matter which side of the fence you find yourself on, we are living in a world where speed and convenience is key.

We are a mobile society in a mobile world. Obviously, the banking industry is one among the many of which that are realizing it.

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