Patelco Credit Union has launched person-to-person mobile payments and integrated the service into its mobile banking platform.

Mobile Popmoney enables Patelco’s members to send an electronic payment directly to another person via an email or text message from their mobile phone. CashEdge and MShift Inc. jointly enable this integration of Mobile Pay Other People Popmoney P2P payments via the MShift mobile banking platform.

“Patelco is committed to offering our members access to the latest and most convenient banking services,” said Anthony Vitale, director of application development at Patelco Credit Union, San Francisco.

“We are very excited to have partnered with CashEdge to enable the Pay Other People Popmoney technology to be available to our members via Patelco’s online banking services,” he said.
 
“Consumers are starting to demand banking solutions on their phones and adding mobile payments is a logical extension of our online banking services.”

Patelco is a national credit union serving more than 290,000 members nationwide. Patelco’s $3.7 billion in assets ranks it among the largest credit unions in the nation.

CashEdge specializes in mobile and online person-to-person payments, account transfers, account opening and funding, small business applications and financial account aggregation.

The company’s clients include seven of the 10 largest banks in the country, for which they move more than $50 billion every year.

MShift is a provider of mobile banking technology for the financial services industry via the mobile Internet, SMS/text banking and downloadable applications.

Pay Other People via mobile
With the technology of MShift, this mobile P2P payment service can now be integrated into financial institutions’ mobile banking platform powered by MShift.

Patelco Credit Union claims that it is the first financial institution in the United States to launch this person-to-person mobile payment system fully integrated into its mobile banking platform.

Rather than a stand-alone application requiring a separate login, MShift technology enables Mobile Popmoney person-to-person payments to be initiated from the mobile environment, as well as fully integrated within the complete host of mobile banking services, features and functionality offered on the MShift mobile banking platform.

Patelco built its text-messaging banking platform in-house. It taps mShift for its mobile browser-based solution.

The credit union currently has an iPhone application in development.
 
Mr. Vitale said that Patelco sees P2P mobile payments primarily as a value-added service to increase consumer loyalty.
 
The credit union is using various tactics to get the word out about the service.

“We have a promotional spot on our home page and inside online banking,” Mr. Vitale said. “We plan to feature the new service in our next newsletter and include information about it in our new member welcome email.

“We also plan to send a targeted email campaign to all members,” he said.

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Commerce Daily