Back in February Barclays launched their PingIt app, which allowed iPhone, Blackberry and Android phone users the opportunity to send and receive money via a phone number and without the need to share bank details.
At the time of launch, non-Barclays account holders could only receive payments, but as of yesterday, Barclays has updated the app to allow any UK bank customer to both receive and send payments.
If you don’t bank with Barclays, when you register you’ll have a Barclays Pingit Wallet account set up for you on the app for you to use to send money. You can top-up the Barclays Pingit Wallet account by paying in cash at a Barclays branch, transferring money to it from your UK current account or using any UK Barclays ATM.
As well as opening all the functionality of the app up to other banks’ customers, the app has also undergone some cosmetic changes to make it easier to use.
Download
The app is available for free from iTunes for the iPhone, iPod and iPad, from Google Play for Android phones and from the Blackberry App World.
iPhone Screenshots
Barclays PingIt home screen:
View your available balance:
View your transactions:
Make a transfer:
Have you used the Barclays PingIt app? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
Is it planned to be open access, so all banks can compete using the same infrastructure set by this Barclay product? Or will it be a sealed-off monopoly where Barclays will aim to ramp-up their processing commission charge each year and retailers will be forced to accept them? If this is a closed system, lets hope the government is working hard on setting open access specifications so we get cheap & competitive processing for the fast approaching cashless society.