US Bank makes P2P free

By July 8, 2016Bitcoin Business

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here .

US Bank, the fifth largest commercial bank in the US, eliminated fees associated with digital real-time peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, likely as part of a move to make the platform more attractive to consumers.

Customers can send money through bank-owned clearXchange, a network that allows intra- and inter-bank P2P transfers within existing banking apps and websites. US Bank was the first bank to launch real-time transfer on clearXchange.

For context, US Bank had charged $6.95 per real-time and $2.95 per next-day transfer, fees that could be cost-prohibitive for the lower-value transactions that P2P is popular for. But other banks began offering their customers free real-time transfers via clearXchange. It’s likely that US Bank changed its stance to align with its peers and push its customers to use the service for inter-bank transactions.

US Bank might gain in the long run by cutting fees. Without fees, the service won’t be directly profitable for the bank. But fee-less real-time transfers could more closely tie US Bank customers to mobile or digital banking. And though deposit accounts don’t drive significant revenue, closer ties to mobile banking could push consumers towards other products that might — mobile banking users consume 2.3 banking products on average, compared to 1.3 among nonmobile users, according to Fiserv .

But that’s dependent on the service’s ability to attract users, which could prove challenging. clearXchange could capitalize on the trust consumers place in their banks. No single firm has captured a majority of the mobile P2P market, which leaves room for banks to grab share, particularly because 75% of consumers would trust their bank most for a mobile wallet, according to ING . That level of trust could carry over to P2P […]

Leave a Reply

All Today's Crypto News In One Place