Building a P2P Payment App- What you need to know

The need to carry cash has significantly dwindled in the past few years with the introduction of a slew of mobile payment apps. This seems to have solved many other concerns of people, such as it avoids the hassle of change, people can split bills, and most importantly, pay as per their convenience. So, in case you are out of cash or forgot your card or wallet, there’s no need to worry or panic. The payment app on your smartphone will do the needful.

Report suggests that more than 70 million people in the USA prefer to use peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps to transfer money, and the count would only surge in the future. This industry is currently on the boom, and if you are looking to build a P2P payment app, this blog post will be your guide. Here, we will discuss how you can create one and what all do you need to take into account when developing a mobile payment app.

We, at Dew, prowess in P2P payment app development. Take a look at the P2P app that we developed for one of our clients.

What are P2P Payments?

Peer-to-Peer Payments (P2P) are online transactions made from one mobile payment app to another similar app. All it requires is linking the bank account or card to the service app. P2P apps make it easy to transfer funds between two parties even if they are clients of different banks.

To send money or make a payment to the peer, the sender just needs to choose the recipient either through their registered contact number or a beneficiary ID, or they can scan the receiver’s QR code as well. After that, they need to enter the amount and click on send. Most payment apps require users to set up a password to initiate bank transfers for security purposes.

Things to consider when building a mobile P2P payment app

There is a myriad of P2P payment apps available today, giving customers the options to choose from whatever payment application they prefer the most or find easy-to-use. PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle are some of the most popular ones. Entering this segment of the mobile app industry won’t be a cakewalk as you will have to compete with the already existing big players. Though a lot will depend on your marketing activities and strategies, what matters the most before is the payment app you build is equally liked by the end-users.

Here are some helpful tips on how to build a great payment app and get the best results possible.

1. Thorough Market Research

Building a great P2P payment app requires thorough market research. Research your competitors and find out what strategies do they follow, what’s their monetization strategy, etc. Apart from your competitors, see what’s trending in the market. You need to be very clear about a few things from the very starting, such as are you going to create a regional payment app or take it on the International level? Will it cater to both personal and businesses payments? A mix of your ideas and the research & analysis will help you a lot during the P2P payment app development.

2. Compatible with the primary online payment methods

Ensure that the payment app supports most of the payment modes such as online eCommerce payments, P2P payments within the system’s network, and On-the-spot payments at retailers.

Though these should be considered, they won’t suffice to make you stand out from your competitors. To evoke more interest or curiosity in your target users, you can also consider incorporating various other associated features in your app such as paying a merchant on an installment plan, sending and receiving a friend-to-friend borrowing request, setting a borrowing limit, etc.

3. Don’t expose user’s card details

One thing that users look for the most whenever they try out a payment app is its security level. Needless to say, payment security should be the top priority for any payment-related application. If users aren’t going to feel safe about the transaction or their card details stored inside the app, they will simply discontinue using your app and unlink their accounts.

To ensure safe and secure money transfers, integrate a secure payment gateway. Apart from this, make sure that the user’s card number isn’t exposed during a transaction. Instead, enable sending a protected code. You can also enable fingerprint authentication to authorize transactions.

4. Adhere to the compliances

Every industry requires businesses to adhere to certain compliance requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, etc. The same goes when you develop a fintech application. For the fintech industry, businesses must comply with the PCI-DSS standard (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). Read about the compliance and see how you can get PCI-DSS certified.

Compliances can also vary according to your target regions, for instance, CCPA is mandatory for all the businesses obtaining information of the California residents. Similarly, look what all compliances you need to adhere to, to avoid any legal issues later.

Basic Features to Incorporate

Apart from the money transfer features, the app should have its own digital wallet so that the users can use it to send or pay without having to link a bank account. For every transaction that occurs, the invoice should be sent to the user’s registered email address. The app should ask users to set a unique ID that can be used to initiate bank payments.

In addition to these features, you can also enable the chat option where users can send a message to the receiver and leave a text simultaneously so that in the future they can remember for what purpose they made this transaction.

Summing Up

You would now have got a rough idea of what you need to follow or set up for a P2P payment application, however, it would be better if you get in touch with a P2P payment app development company to build the desired application. They would also be able to serve you better if they know what exactly you are looking for.