Barclays to roll out m-payments app internationally

Pingit

Barclays is gearing up to roll out its Pingit mobile payments app globally (view press release). Launched in the UK earlier this year, Pingit is a P2P payments service that enables people to send and receive money using mobile phone numbers. The bank will roll out the app across thirteen African countries by the end of this year, beginning this week with a link enabling people in the UK to send money to Kenya, with expansion into Europe planned for early 2013. Pingit limits will remain the same, with UK customers able to send up to GBP750 while customers in Kenya can receive up to GBP5,000 per day. Barclays claims that the app, which allows payments to be made instantly available was downloaded over one million times in its first six months in the UK.

Barclays is targeting Pingit at the 200,000 Kenyan-born people in the UK and many more of Kenyan heritage who want to send money back to relatives. In the first half of 2012, Kenyans working abroad sent around USD600 million in remittance payments into the country.

The service will be extended to Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Uganda, UAE, Seychelles and Mauritius by the end of the year.

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