Yesterday, Visa announced that it will introduce a person-to-person payment feature. Cardholders from participating banks, will be able to make direct transfers simply by entering an amount and the recipient's 16-digit cardnumber, phone number or email address in their online or mobile bank.
Of course, this feature has been around for many years, and Fast Company reports that over 70 specialist providers already offer the capability. While many of these have the clear advantage of many years experience and a much cooler interface, such as Bump for the iPhone, Visa is the premier payments brand and does have far broader reach than any of these competitors.
As such, this move may not only open up a new opportunity for Visa, but may also facilitate the development of this space for incumbents, such PayPal and Bump.
Most interesting though, is that Visa have had to 'tweak' its payments network and partner with CashEdge and Fiserv to offer a product that has already been in the market for 5 years +. This only illustrates how far behind traditional payments players are with regards to digital money. As mobile payments become increasingly commonplace, it will be interesting to see if they are able to step up their game or if they are outflanked on every front.
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