Another financial writer (who seems to be in his 20s or 30s) wrote something about digital money transfer. This 60-something may learn a thing or two from this young man? It seems all he wanted to do is to send money to family members or friends. Here is what he wrote; (it was an article written in 2014 though. But some of the P2P like clearXchange or Popmoney (embedded into your bank’s website instead of another user ID/password to set up and keep track of) have been out since 2011. I bet between 2014 and 2016, there could be zillions of “software upgrades”. Hopefully, from 2011 to 2016, this kind of online software could be more robust already after all these software upgrades in the past 5+ years.
I think he had a point when he wrote the trust issue is the most critical one (when a large amount of money is transferred) in this paragraph:
“the likes of Google Wallet, Square Cash and PayPal can never earn the amount of consumer trust that exists when someone knows their money is moving between two financial institutions, as opposed to a middleman”
"Having embraced the digital-banking lifestyle, banks haven’t received much face-time from me. From credit card bills to the monthly paycheck, most of my money flows in an automated system that requires almost no effort on my part. And, it’s been great. The less I have to deal with the physical aspects of banking, the more I’ve come to appreciate my banks, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial.
But, no matter how streamlined my finances are, there is one thing that has proven to be a regular nuisance. It’s the need for a no-cost method of sending money to and from family and friends, without the friction that requires recipients to provide hard-to-remember information like account numbers and routing numbers.
In two recent situations, I struggled to come up with ways to make and receive personal payments from family and friends.
First, a friend who uses Citibank opted to just go to the ATM to get cash for me. I knew he could have used Citibank’s person-to-person payments feature (through Popmoney), but I didn’t want to deal with signing up for a Popmoney account. This is far too common of an occurrence that prevents more use of P-to-P payments.
Second, I wanted to send money to a family member who uses Bank of America. Just like the above example, the relative didn’t want to deal with entering hard-to-find information to collect money through Chase QuickPay, which I would have used to make the transfer.
I recalled that Bank of America and Chase are both founding members of clearXchange, a P-to-P payment network that would allow customers of member banks to send money to each other with just an email address or phone number. According to the FAQs, there is no fee to send or receive money, which is all any consumer can ask for.
With Bank of America and Wells Fargo as founding members, clearXchange would allow me to send and receive money easily through Chase. To my dismay, Chase is not yet capable of providing P-to-P payments through the clearXchange network. Considering this network formed two years ago, I’d expect the service to be available already.
As for the relative’s payment, she wrote a check, which I immediately deposited through my smartphone. It’s a waste of a check and the process required more effort and resources than an electronic method of sending funds.
The argument for third-party services may be brought into the discussion, but the likes of Google Wallet, Square Cash and PayPal can never earn the amount of consumer trust that exists when someone knows their money is moving between two financial institutions, as opposed to a middleman.
In the next year, I would like to see Chase finally incorporate clearXchange’s P-to-P payment services, so that I may continue to bank with more ease. Furthermore, I can see clearXchange’s value proposition to become attractive to more banks, especially the nation’s largest financial institutions (the network recently added its first nonfounding member bank)."
