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"Barclays has just made it easier for large businesses to pay individual customers in the UK via its mobile payment service Pingit.\r\n\r\nThe bank announced today that it has added a feature to let large firms including insurance and utility companies, as well as retailers, send payments by simply using the person's mobile phone number.\r\n\r\nThe Pingit app itself is nothing new, having\u00A0launched in Febraury 2012\u00A0as a service that allowed users to send money to friends, family or\u00A0anyone else that\u2019s registered\u00A0as a UK resident and has a UK bank account -- and what's more, it\u2019s not restricted to Barclays account holders.\r\n\r\nHow Pingit's latest feature works: Large businesses can use Barclays'\u00A0existing File Gateway channel to send electronic payments directly into an individual\u2019s Barclays Pingit account.\u00A0Payments can reach any UK mobile phone number, regardless of whether they have already registered as a user on Pingit. Non-registered users will be notified by text message with details of how to register to receive payment.\r\n\r\nThe CEGA Group, which facilitates global claims and travel risk management, has already signed on for\u00A0Pingit to make use of this new feature.\r\n\r\n\u201CIt offers our customers a faster alternative to BACS payments, minimizes the need to share personal information and satisfies the increasing desire to interact by mobile phone,&amp;quot; CEGA financial director\u00A0Warwick Hoddy notes.\r\n\r\nBarclays hasn't been resting on its laurels as it seeks to position Pingit as a competitor against other payment processors (large and small alike) such as PayPal and Stripe, looking to win over businesses to become yet another defacto payment method. However, its reputation of being an established multinational bank will likely help in its favor -- and in this case, it is making full use of its relationship with large companies to migrate them to Pingit.\r\n\r\nHeadline image via Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/11/19/barclays-pingit-app-now-lets-large-firms-pay-individual-customers-using-just-a-mobile-number/>