You wonder why it did not happen long ago, but it did not and now it is Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv that deserves the praise for coming up with a tight integration of its Popmoney person-to- person payment tool with its mobile banking app.
That means a user can check balances, use classic bill pay and – still staying within the app – use Popmoney to dispatch funds to friends and others, the company said.
“It’s about convenience for the consumer,” said Fiserv vice president Steve Shaw in an interview.
He added that around 600 financial institutions already are live with the Popmoney integration.
The way it works is that existing Fiserv mobile banking customers are offered the option to add in Popmoney to their apps.
New Fiserv mobile banking customers get the integration out of the box.
“We are unaware of any P2P product with similar mobile banking integration,” said Shaw.
A PayPal user, for instance, would have to leave his/her mobile banking app, sign into PayPal, and do a separate transaction.
With Fiserv this all could happen inside the banking app, said Shaw.
“We introduced this because for some time we have been hearing from our customers that they wanted the convenience,” said Shaw.
A hope – on the parts of both Fiserv and its financial institution customers – is that this integration will up usage of P2P delivered by banks and credit unions, said Shaw.
