Itās been a while since we did our last Fintech Q&A, but weāre coming back with a bang! With more and more companies making use of Open Banking, hopefully weāll be having more and more soon.
Iām excited to announce that weāll have Luke Massie, CEO of VibePay with us later this week, and hereās why:
At just 26 years old, Luke already has an enviable track record as a successful entrepreneur receiving backing from property tycoon, Nick Candy, and businessman, Scott Fletcher. In school he was outsourcing paper rounds across his local area and set up his first business at 17, selling it just before he turned 18 for Ā£94,000.
In 2014, Luke founded the hugely successful ticket re-sale platform, VibeTickets, which has raised Ā£3.2m with Ā£600,000 in crowdfunding. Following the introduction of Open Banking, Luke spotted another gap in the market and created VibePay, to change social payments for the better.
About VibePay
VibePay is the social way to get paid back, making it easier for friends to split the cost of concert tickets, presents, holidays, dinners, etcā¦ The app is powered by Open Banking and enables secure payments direct from your bank account, regardless of who you bank with. Since launching in September 2019, VibePay now boasts 10,000+ users.
So, get your questions in, and Luke will be here later this week to answer them!
Why do you ask for an Apple ID or Gmail address when signing up for early access? It makes VibePay look suspicious to me, as no one has ever asked me for my Apple ID except for Apple! If it was any old email address that wouldnāt raise any flags with me, but asking as you do seems like a phishing attempt (not saying it is, just how it comes across to me).
(And as a side note, you need to add Monzo to the list of supported banks in the FAQ.)
Question 2 does however have a simple answer. The app isnāt out yet, they need the email assigned to your Apple or google account to invite you to the beta to download the app.
I.e if youāre on iOS, your email address can be used to invite you to Testflight.
Ah, fair enough, makes sense. Iāll leave my original post as is because I think thereās still a question of how to present this given Iām on a couple of TestFlight apps and still didnāt understand, so presumably other people might have the same question?
As someone who banks solely with Monzo, what does VibePay offer to me that I donāt get with the existing offerings?
I can already request money from other Monzo users seamlessly, and worse case I can share a custom monzo.me URL!
In fact I can send a monzo.me URL which automatically deposits into a pot - which is extremely helpful for organising our Lotto syndicate and other funds. Is this sort of automation something that VibePay can do? or does it just drop it into my main account?
Great point!
Please donāt shoot me when I ask this, how do you get the Monzo.me link payment to go directly into a pot? I am amazed Learning everyday
SherlockJamesCrowdfunding Investor
As someone who banks solely with Monzo, what does VibePay offer to me that I donāt get with the existing offerings?
Thereās always two parties involved in any transaction. Monzo are doing an amazing job of building features for Monzo to Monzo payments, but as you suggest, that experience degrades significantly if both parties donāt bank with Monzo.
We want to offer feature parity no matter who you - or whoeverās paying you - banks with (weāve found that users donāt necessarily want to change banks just to access the latest features), so weāve built a bank agnostic solution.
VibePay consolidates the context of transactions and conversations - making payments social. In the past this has been done on messengers (e.g. WhatsApp) and payments have taken place somewhere else.
Open Banking presents a huge opportunity for both consumers and businesses. The barriers to entry - both technically and financially - have been lowered, so payments are fast becoming a commodity.
The real value will be created from the applications and services built on top of VibePay Open Banking Gateway weāve built - an aggregation layer across all the existing banks (including Monzo!).
The VibePay consumer product is the best way for us to demonstrate our platformās capabilities and add value to consumerās everyday lives.
In 2020 youāre going to see Vibe launch premium services powering social commerce #GetPaid and allowing 3rd parties to benefit from our payment and data APIs. Our Vibe Promise is to keep the consumer offering 100% free and B2B offerings transparent and fairly priced.
Why do you ask for an Apple ID or Gmail address when signing up for early access? It makes VibePay look suspicious to me, as no one has ever asked me for my Apple ID except for Apple! If it was any old email address that wouldnāt raise any flags with me, but asking as you do seems like a phishing attempt (not saying it is, just how it comes across to me).
Weāve been making continuous improvements to our beta app (weāre on version 30, soon to be 31) based on feature development and the Vibe communityās feedback.
Weād been hoping to get to 50 releases before going live on the app store - however, as youāve highlighted, there are limitations to testing via TestFlight; weāre moving our beta over to the live app store within the next 7 days!
Open Banking consists of two broad areas within which weāre going to see disruption and innovation; these sit under permissions granted by the FCA under the titles of AISP and PISP:
1. PISP (Payment Initiation Service Provider)
Card disintermediation as a result of Open Banking will change online payments forever; paying directly with your bank at checkout will become the norm for consumers. Open Banking will be able to remove the costs associated with middlemen who currently stand businesses and consumers.
This will have numerous practical and technical impacts e.g. reduction in the requirement of bank cards and more streamlined online checkouts.
2. AISP (Account Information Service Provider)
For years us consumers have been giving away data unknowingly and with no real benefit to ourselves.
Open Banking gives consumers more control, and sharing data more secure and easy to manage.
Consumers can grant and rescind access to data infinitely more easily and securely compared to current solutions - sending copies of your bank statements will be a thing of the past!
