Zippay: Irish banks to launch Revolut rival two years after previous effort was scrapped
Whilst neo banks have taken the mobile banking industry by storm, increasingly traditional banks are investing much more in customer experience and placing customer value and ESG at the core of their purpose.
The country's three pillar banks are combining to roll out a new instant payments service to compete with Revolut, two years after their previous effort was scrapped.
AIB, Bank of Ireland, and PTSB will launch Zippay early next year, a person-to-person mobile payment service that will be available to the retail banks’ 5m customers.
The service will be accessed through the banks’ existing apps and will allow customers to send, request, and split payments using contacts' mobile numbers.
It will allow customers to send up to €1,000 per day as well as request up to €500 per transaction.
Rolling out within the banks’ current apps instead of a new single app means the service should avoid the regulatory hurdles which beset the previous attempt.
An instant payments app has long been a demand from banking customers who can sometimes wait days for transfers and payments to be completed using traditional methods.
Digital banking services such as Revolut and N26 have exploited this gap gaining millions of customers in Ireland.
The banking representative body, Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) said the Zippay service will delivered by Italian firm Nexi.
BPFI chief executive Brian Hayes said Zippay was developed in response to “customer feedback and demand”.
“Eligible customers will automatically be enrolled to Zippay, which will appear in their personal banking app once the service is launched next year.
"It will use mobile numbers saved in the customer’s contact list to identify who else uses Zippay.
"There will be no need to set up a new payee or know their IBAN, BIC or account numbers, the money will transfer between accounts seamlessly,” he said.
In 2020, Ireland's three pillar banks, along with KBC, entered a joint venture to create Synch Payments, an industry-wide banking payments app with the service also being developed by Nexi.
The plan drew concerns about the huge market power wielded by the pillar banks and the lack of competition, concerns which grew by the departure of KBC and Ulster Bank from the Irish market.
Synch hit an early stumbling block when the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission rejected the initial application for supplying insufficient information.
The competition watchdog eventually approved the project in June 2022.
However, there were further delays to the app’s development and the project was scrapped in 2023 after €17m had been invested.
The Zippay service is being viewed as a more simple rollout with no delays expected as Nexi already operates a similar system in Italy.
Renato Martini, digital banking solutions director of Nexi, said Zippay has been designed with the goal of making it as widely available to customers across Ireland as possible.
“After the initial launch, Zippay will be offered on a non-discriminatory basis to all financial institutions that provide IBAN account services and a mobile app to Irish consumers,” he said.
The understands that Nexi has been in contact with at least three other Irish financial institutions about using the service.
If successfully rolled out, Zippay will offer the pillar banks a service long-sought by Irish customers and compete for younger banking customers who have no loyalty to pillar banks.
Revolut began operating in Ireland in 2015 as s simple money-transfer app but has since evolved into a dominant player in Ireland with 3m customers.
It secured a full banking licence in 2022.
It has added a range of services including savings accounts, personal loans, motor insurance, and a stock trading platform.
Revolut is also expected to roll out mortgages in Ireland in the coming months.
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