You've Got Money! Person-to-Person Payments from Visa
That friend in your office who regularly free-loads $10 or $20 -- and then says he can't repay you either
because he's out of cash or only has a $1,000 bill -- well, he's going to have to come up with another excuse. The reason: Visa announced that later this year U.S. consumers will be able to send and receive funds from any eligible Visa credit, debit or prepaid account.
The process would work like this, according to Visa,
Bank customers of participating financial institutions will have the option to select a Visa account as the destination for funds when making a personal payment. By simply entering the recipient's 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, consumers can send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient's Visa account. This makes sending money to a niece for her birthday or to a son in college simpler, faster, and more convenient than before.I, for one, have not committed my son's 16-digit Visa number to memory. Nor do I have it written down. But, I've got his cell phone and email address. (He hasn't even un-friended me on Facebook -- yet.) To pay him, I would go to my bank and make a transfer to my son's Visa card -- that's assuming my bank participates in the program. My kid would get a "you've-got-money" alert on his cell phone or in his email account. (That message would get his attention, I think.) He could then lay his hands on the dough by directing them to his bank account -- or leave them as a credit on his Visa card. Of course, for this all to work, the payee would have to have to be enrolled in Visa's program. So, if you're trying to collect $20 from that deadbeat at the office, he will still have an excuse: Sorry, I only have American Express.
One problem I can foresee: As a supremely lousy typist, I just know that I will be erroneously dispatching funds to, say, terijones@mail.com instead of jerrijones@mail.com. If money is paid to Teri instead of Jerri, how will I get it back -- or redirect it to the right place? Elvira Swanson, senior business leader in global corporate relations for Visa, says that FiServe and Zash, the two peer-to-peer systems providing the platforms underpinning the program, will have an authentication system in place.
And lest we forget, there will be a fee for each transaction. How much? Depends on the participating bank, says Visa.
Whether the service will catch on is another question. A survey conducted by ABI research in 2009 found that in most developed areas of the world, person-to-person mobile payments aren't of much interest to consumers. Only 16 percent of Western Europeans (those in France, Germany and the United Kingdom) were "extremely" or "very" interested in mobile peer-to-peer payments. In the United States, the percentage was only 9 percent.
More on MoneyWatch
Why People Don't Mind Paying $39 for a $4 Latte
The Cruelest Scam: How One Guy Got Taken
Asking for Your ZIP Code: A New No-No for Retailers
9 Ways You Could Mess Up This Tax Season
Avoid These Office Buzzwords