Zapp Readies Its Service for a UK Launch This Fall

Fall has been regarded as a season of change. The weather cools, daylight fades, the trees erupt in a riot of color and, for the United Kingdom, a new mobile payments service will land.

Zapp, the mobile payments startup built by VocaLink—a company regarded for its advancements in mobile payments infrastructure—will be on hand for users starting at some point this fall. But it won’t make its arrival into the season of change unescorted.

The Zapp service is set to work with several mobile banking apps, and will get support from five major banks in the UK in the process: Metro Bank, First Direct, HSBC, Nationwide, and Santander are all in, with the latter four set to offer Apple Pay as well.

There will be no shortage of merchants ready to take such services as payment, either; reports suggest that 60 percent of the entire UK merchant base is ready to take the Zapp service as a payment system, including such major names as Asda, Thomas Cook, Shop Direct, and many more.

Those who wonder if a merchant is involved in those better-than-a-coin-flip odds will need only check for the “Pay by Bank app” pay-mark.

Though it will only be available for online payments in the early going, it will step up to in-store payments later as near field communications (NFC) payments get involved, though at a date really only defined as “later” so far.

Further good news for the partner businesses emerged as well, as reports from the company noted that the simplicity of the pay-by-app system would “…deliver better conversion at a significantly lower cost.”

Eventually, company reps described, there would come a time where Zapp technology could be used anywhere where a contactless credit card payment could be taken, a move that would put it ahead of some operations like Apple Pay. But in the short term, it would likely be less than useful for brick-and-mortar firms.

However, the timing here might turn out just right. Consider the idea of the mobile version coming out in early fall, say, late September to early October.

Then, after everyone’s had the opportunity to try it out, roll out the brick-and-mortar version in mid-November, give or take. That’s right in time for the holiday shopping season, and having more payment options on hand for that time of year—when even those who don’t normally do a lot of shopping are neck-deep in shopping opportunities—is the kind of thing that’s welcome for all concerned.

The timing may not work out that way, but it would certainly be welcome if it could for a lot of users.

Only time will tell just how this comes out, but in the short term, there will be a great new option for UK shoppers. This could be part of a master plan, and if it is, it could shake up the mobile payments landscape in the UK.