Barclays seeks to get into the mobile space in a way not many of the competitiors in the market have. Kenya has been ranked highly in mobile use and penetration globally, notes Barclays Kenya Managing Director Mr. Adan Mohamed. Today foreign remittances are in an excess of 1 million USD according to CBK, the mechanism of transfer has been challenging to users. Duration of money receiving is long in some solutions and others are expensive.
Many banks have set up mobile banking platforms to sort out utility bills payments, balance enquiry and customer service. But there is a missing link that hasnt been exploited, this being banks are restricted to their own customers, you cannot pay across banks. The other missing link is that most financial services have been restricted to domestic services, cross border transactions havent, Barclays will meet this need with this new product that is Ping it.
Pingit was previously launched in the UK and Kenya is the first country in Africa that they will be launching it in. Success in this market will make Barclays consider to expand it to other markets. The product will make the bank provide realtime, more secure and convenient service. Access to the service on mobile phone is via a mobile app available on Android, Blackberry and iOS.
Pingit is a free service to Barclays customers both to the sender and the recipient. Currently the service is restricted to the UK and that makes transactions to and from Kenya and the UK seamless. UK users just need to have an account in any bank in the UK and a smartphone to make the transaction. Limit of transaction per day sending is £750 and £5,000 receiving a day from other users and the transfer process happens within minutes. Users from Kenya require to have a Barclays account on the other hand.
