VibePay - Fintech Q&A! 💸

Financial Chat Fintech Q&A's
#1

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Hey all :wave:

It’s been a while since we did our last Fintech Q&A, but we’re coming back with a bang! With more and more companies making use of Open Banking, hopefully we’ll be having more and more soon.

I’m excited to announce that we’ll have Luke Massie, CEO of VibePay with us later this week, and here’s why:

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About Luke Massie, CEO and founder of Vibe:

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 £94,000.

In 2014, Luke founded the hugely successful ticket re-sale platform, VibeTickets, which has raised £3.2m with £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, etc… 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!

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#2

Wow seems really cool! Fast payments in seconds and a couple of clicks, making a cupper is like soo long compared to what’s about these days :smirk:

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#3

First question…

You’d really ask for 5p back from a mate?

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#4

I have two questions:

  1. How will you make money if you’re guaranteeing to keep it “100% free for consumers”?

  2. 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 wouldn’t 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.)

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#5

Question 1 is good and valid.

Question 2 does however have a simple answer. The app isn’t 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 you’re on iOS, your email address can be used to invite you to Testflight.

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#6

Ah, fair enough, makes sense. I’ll leave my original post as is because I think there’s still a question of how to present this given I’m on a couple of TestFlight apps and still didn’t understand, so presumably other people might have the same question?

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#7

Yes definitely leave your post there as is :slight_smile:

I was intrigued as to how they would actually make money too so that’s a good question.

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#8

As someone who banks solely with Monzo, what does VibePay offer to me that I don’t 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?

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#9

:point_up:
Great point!
Please don’t shoot me when I ask this, how do you get the Monzo.me link payment to go directly into a pot? I am amazed :slight_smile: Learning everyday :nerd_face:

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#10

Ahah - not going to shoot anyone. Will DM you as to not side track the Q+A!

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#11

Other than payments, what do you think will be the other big draws based on Open Banking for consumers?

Do you think a Venmo-style social feed of who your friends are paying with notes would ever take off in the UK?

#12

Kill me now.

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#14


SherlockJamesCrowdfunding Investor
As someone who banks solely with Monzo, what does VibePay offer to me that I don’t get with the existing offerings?

There’s 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 don’t bank with Monzo.

We want to offer feature parity no matter who you - or whoever’s paying you - banks with (we’ve found that users don’t necessarily want to change banks just to access the latest features), so we’ve 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.

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#15


jzw95Jolin

  1. How will you make money if you’re guaranteeing to keep it “100% free for consumers ”?

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 we’ve built - an aggregation layer across all the existing banks (including Monzo!).

The VibePay consumer product is the best way for us to demonstrate our platform’s capabilities and add value to consumer’s everyday lives.

In 2020 you’re 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.

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#16


jzw95Jolin

  1. 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 wouldn’t 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).

We’ve been making continuous improvements to our beta app (we’re on version 30, soon to be 31) based on feature development and the Vibe community’s feedback.

We’d been hoping to get to 50 releases before going live on the app store - however, as you’ve highlighted, there are limitations to testing via TestFlight; we’re moving our beta over to the live app store within the next 7 days!

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#17

That makes a lot of sense, and is exciting! I’m glad you’re thinking bigger than just a consumer app.

A follow-up question then, if I may. Do you see Curl as a competitor then, or is this a different type of thing?

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#18


simonb Monzo COps Community Specialist :speech_balloon:
Other than payments, what do you think will be the other big draws based on Open Banking for consumers?

Open Banking consists of two broad areas within which we’re 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!

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#19

Thanks for joining us Luke, very interested to see where VibePay goes next :slight_smile:

#20