Mastercard Partners With Four Retailers For Pay By Bank App

Mastercard is collaborating with four eCommerce retailers — WHSmith.co.uk, Funky Pigeon, Cult Pens and The Card Gallery — to offer the Pay by Bank app to online shoppers, Mastercard announced in a press release on Friday (Oct. 18).

“We are thrilled to be partnering with WHSmith and its brands Funky Pigeon, Cult Pens and The Card Gallery to bring this revolutionary new way to pay, putting the customer firmly in control of their finances. Pay by Bank app offers a best-in-class digital payment solution that optimizes user experience while making transactions more secure and reducing fraud,” said Suren Nawalkar, senior vice president of consumer applications at Mastercard.

Pay by Bank app (PbBa) — created by Vocalink, a Mastercard company — leverages the U.K.’s Faster Payments service to give users the option of paying for goods with their bank account. This bypasses the need for entering payment information and passwords, simplifying the buying and payment process.

PbBa is designed to work with the security of a consumer’s own bank. It’s not a separate app to download or service to sign-up for — it works through the mobile banking app a user has.

“WHSmith is excited to launch Mastercard’s innovative new payment method, Pay by Bank app. We are keen to offer our shoppers digital payment methods that are designed to be both secure and simple and Pay by Bank app allows our shoppers to authenticate direct with their bank offering a flexible and user-friendly checkout experience,” said Ian Sanders, group commercial development director at WHSmith.

In August,  Vocalink tapped Gregor Dobbie to be its new CEO. Managing director since 2017, Dobbie is leading Vocalink in the expansion of B2B payment services in the U.K. as well as maintain the company’s critical national infrastructures.

Dobbie will be in charge of infrastructure and applications that power the U.K.’s real-time and batch payments, direct debit bill pay systems and the country’s network of nearly 70,000 ATMs.

Dobbie joined Vocalink’s Card Transaction Services business in 2014 and has more than 16 years of FinTech experience.