PayPal App Gets P2P-Focused Revamp

“Tap into your money.”

That’s the message PayPal is pitching with the overhaul of its mobile app — a move that hasn’t been done since the app’s initial launch. And with more and more money transfers occurring on mobile, it makes sense as to why PayPal is jumping on the chance to revamp the app in a way that brings its most popular features to the front of the app.

What the redesign entails is a more streamlined version of an app that allows users to make P2P payments, pay in stores, order food and tap into their account settings in a quicker manner. This comes at a time when PayPal has said that one in four of its transactions are occurring on mobile.

As explained to PYMNTS by Anuj Nayar, Global Head of Product Communications at PayPal, the goal of the redesign is simple: to focus on the PayPal features consumers use most, instead of what features PayPal thinks consumers should be using most.

“To us, this is about innovation at scale. What we’ve done is really redesigned the app from the ground up so that it doesn’t do what we think consumers want it to do. We’ve asked them what they are actually doing on the app, and decided to move that stuff up to the front and get rid of all the clutter,” Nayar said.

Because the old version of the app was so focused on PayPal’s ability to be used in-store, Nayar explained that PayPal decided it was time to flip the options and bring what features consumers tend to gravitate to PayPal for: sending and receiving funds. In the past two years alone, PayPal said it’s seeing more than 100 percent growth in the number of P2P transactions happening in the app.

“Just a few weeks after the launch of our ‘New Money’ global marketing campaign, the redesigned PayPal app embodies our vision for the future of money. We redesigned the app to make it simpler and more personal for you to move and manage your money no matter where you are,” PayPal explained in its blog post.

The simplified features of the app also include a new home screen that shows users their transaction details, the ability to pay pending requests, or the option to send payments to recent contacts. PayPal claims that much of this redesign was driven by feedback from customers and its 8,000 customer service team members.

In addition, the new app also has added the following features: fine-tuning Android fingerprint authentication for more devices, separating account activity by pending and completed transactions, and offering quicker access to the friends the user sends the most. PayPal said it’s also made it easier to use the in-store functionality for making payments in features like ordering ahead for its restaurant partners.