Financial services technology provider Fiserv has added its Popmoney person-to-person (P2P) payments product to its Mobiliti mobile banking platform, the company announced last week. Customers that use the whitelabeled Mobiliti product will now be able to make P2P payments from within their bank accounts.
Popmoney was originally an offering of CashEdge, a company acquired by Fiserv in the summer of 2011.
Fiserv’s Mobiliti platform is used by more than 7 million banking customers.
Popmoney will be rolled out to Mobiliti customers in stages, according to Steve Shaw, Fiserv’s VP of strategic marketing. “600 FIs already have it and all new customers will get it,” Shaw told Bank Innovation.
P2P is often thought of as a way to pay part of a dinner tab when out with friends, but the data on usage says something different. Shaw said that the most common use cases Fiserv sees for Popmoney are rent payments, shared utility bills, and in-family payments, in that order. (The average Popmoney transaction is more than $400.)
But Shaw pointed out that the rent and shared utility payments do not necessarily point to a younger demographic. “We see a good cross-section of ages,” he said, adding, “Another common use is for vacation rentals.”
Requesting money, or sending invoices, is next up for Popmoney, according to Shaw. P2P payments aim to occupy the financial niche now inhabited by the personal check. P2P is attractive to financial institutions for being cheaper — and customers for being faster — than checks.
But still, adoption will depend on changing consumer behavior. “Consumer behavior is a hard nut to crack. And financial management is even harder,” said Shaw.
Fiserv will be working to raise customer awareness of the product both within the FI environment and with its own marketing. A glance at the Popmoney website clearly shows Fiserv is interested in establishing a consumer-facing brand with the product.
Fiserv is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis.
Fiserv is a sponsor of next week’s Bank Innovation 2013, and Geoff Knapp, VP of digital channels with the company, will be a panelist. Get your invitation here.