We have the wonderful Faster Payments System[0], that allows near instant payments to any account. Banks have nice phone apps, with push notifications and emoji.
Paypal is a thing usually just a way to avoid putting in card details directly.
Want to pay someone new? Better have your smartphone with the app, and your bank card and your card reader. Be ready to provide your fingerprint and your card PIN number. And they'll send you a text message telling you a new payment recipient has been added. That's a fine level of security if you're paying thousands of pounds - but if you're paying £5 for lunch the process is just as strict.
And despite all that security, it's still limited to payments <£10,000 for some reason.
I miss the Faster Payments network immensely. The systems in Canada and the United States are a mess in comparison.
Monzo for instance just requires that you are signed into the app and can face-ID on iOS.
which is quite specific
Denmark's equivalent, MobilePay, is very widely used. I even use it for some online purchases, as the flow is so smooth:
- Select pay by MobilePay
- (They probably already have my phone number (e.g. for delivery notifications), if not I must enter it. It's 8 digits.)
- A notification appears on my phone, with the amount and recipient
- Fingerprint and swipe to confirm
- That's all.
The website doesn't keep any card data, but I still get a very quick checkout process.
To send money to friends or family (or small businesses) is also fast:
- Open app, unlock with fingerprint
- Type in amount, e.g. 100, press Next
- Choose a recent recipient, or scroll through my contacts, or type a phone number
- See confirmation -- the amount and the person's name as on their bank account, not their name in my address book
- Send.