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How to Create Money Transfer App in 4 steps: brief, simple guide
11 JAN 2023

Plenty of various money transfer apps have appeared over the years and got their firm position in the software development market. They ease our life in different ways. A lot of questions can spring up in our mind, e.g.:
  • What are they?
  • Aren’t there too many of them?
  • Why are they so popular? What are their benefits?
  • How to create a money transfer app? Is it that real? 
In this article, we will cover the key moments of money transfer apps and the stages of making them.

About P2P app development

First, let’s check the definition.

What is P2P? 

There are two ways to decrypt the acronym. The first one is peer-to-peer and the second one is person-to-person.

P2P payments differ from common online banking. A card or phone number is enough to make a money transfer easier. They exclude any third parties’ participation. One of the most striking examples is PayPal.

Why can we hear the term rather often nowadays?

P2P payment systems have developed very much lately. We can see that in the statistics. The global P2P payment market was valued at USD 1.89 trillion in 2021. That’s a huge market volume.

According to another statistic data from Statista, P2P transfers took the 5th position in the list of most popular payment methods for everyday transactions according to internet users worldwide as of June 2018. It was 7%.

It is essential to understand some key drivers of the market growth, as we want to assess the probable further dynamic and situation. Let’s review them further.

Reasons for the huge market jump

  • Convenient and simple payments for users
P2P money transfer apps ease the payment process a lot. People don’t need to take cash wherever they go, as they used to do before apps of such a kind appeared. That’s the main cause of the recent widespread. 

Only one device is enough for a user to make a P2P payment. The fact that having only a smartphone is enough to carry out the entire transaction stimulates the growth of mobile web payments as well.
  • COVID-19 Impact
The pandemic has given a range of benefits for the P2P payment market, as both individuals and businesses started using online methods more widely to continue necessary operations. Also, the growth of the user-base on the e-commerce platforms and the rise in the adoption of mobile phones for educational and other purposes have definitely influenced the P2P payment market positively.

Market development forecast

As researchers predict, the number of clients benefiting from digital remittance services will grow up to 15.6 million customers by 2025.

It means the volume of P2P money transfer development keeps growing. There are still a lot of opportunities in the app development market.

Major market leaders of money transfer apps – examples and unique features

Here we suggest looking through the main money transfer apps of the P2P segment according to the following aspects: type of the app, foundation details, profits, and its features.

✔️ PayPal Pte. Ltd.

PayPal is a multinational financial technology company from the USA. It operates an online payments system in most countries (200+) that support online money transfers. PayPal operates as a payment processor for auction sites, online vendors and many other commercial users. It charges a fee for the operations.

The type of PayPal application is a discrete service system. These are independent systems allowing users to keep their money on their online wallets. They make payments using their bank cards here. One option more here for users is the opportunity to have money in the service with no withdrawing it to a bank account.

Another undeniable advantage of the system is that money is not debited from the account immediately. This is convenient in case the purchase does not reach the buyer.

For Paypal, the fiscal year is from January 1 to December 31. For the period in 2019, Paypal made an official profit of US$2.459 billion. The annual revenue here was $17.772 billion. The increase was 15% over the fiscal cycle before. PayPal’s market capitalization was valued at more than $127.58 billion at the end of 2019.

PayPal has a set of unique features that simplify transactions for both customers and merchants. The essential ones are: interactive and easy UI, Multiple Currency Support, Invoicing, One Touch™, Instant Transfer (to Visa and MasterCard), QR Code (for receiving money), PayPal.Me (the opportunity to receive money from the customers, the professionals and businesses simply with the link generated via PayPal), Cloud integration, Multiple emails by a single account (for more flexibility and making it difficult for cybercriminals to attack an account).

✔️ Tencent, SnapCash

Both of them are huge P2P money transfer systems. The type of the apps is a social platform.

Tencent is originally from China. SnapCash was created by Square from the USA. 

According to the posted second quarter year-on-year revenue of Tencent, the revenue is 134.03 billion Chinese yuan ($19.78 billion).

SnapCash balance for the second quarter of the year was $4.872B. That is a 40.52% increase year-over-year.

The unique feature of both Tencent and SnapCash is that people can make payments when using the social network (WeChat and Snapchat). In this case, transfers are super fast and simple for the users.

This type is very prospective for the companies having or developing social networks.

✔️ Square Inc. – Cash App

Cash App is a mobile payment service available in the United States and the United Kingdom that allows users to transfer money to each other (for a 1.5% fee for immediate transfer) using a mobile phone app. In September 2021, the service reported 70 million annual transacting users and US$1.8 billion in gross profit.

This transfer is special in its set of services: banking (sending, receiving, storing money); peer-to-peer money transfer (requesting, sending money); cryptocurrency (ability to invest in bitcoin), investing (in stock). Moreover, the app includes discounts for retailers.

✔️ ClearXchange – Zelle

This network is a banking service type founded in the USA. The revenue of the company is from 5 to 25 million dollars.

The payment network is special because it has direct integration with banking institutions (fast processing of money transfers) and there are no fee charges for the service.

So, we’ve reviewed the basic info about P2P app development and the market leaders. Now we’ll talk about the most important features to consider when creating a money transfer app.

The key features of money transfer applications

  • Log In/Sign up

This is a critical feature for any app. The simpler it is, the more comfortable users feel when using it. Integrating vital information without the app platform is preferable. It supposes the app authenticates the details with the SMS or calls on the number.
  • Touch ID and Face ID security

There is biometric app protection, comprising fingerprint and facial recognition in this feature. This helps in decreasing the number of global transaction fraud.
  • Data security and privacy

Data protection is a must-have for a money transfer app. That supposes the level of security to be as high as possible. Legal requirements, confidentiality, secure system logs could be basic aspects for the development. The common ways to make an app safe are adding security features (example: fingerprint scanner) and two-factor authentication (example: a password + a verification code from SMS).
  • Notifications

SMS and push notifications let users get updated information about all the actions and events with their money transactions.
  •  App interface and UX

Here it’s good to remember we must make the wanted money transfer app work on a desktop, and provide a great user experience on other devices such as mobile phones and tablets.

The best variant is creating rather simple but working smoothly app design and user interface (UI and UX). We would recommend taking into consideration the way users see the app to analyze their expectations and needs.

So, we’ve reviewed the basic must-have features for creating a money transfer application. Now we’ll talk about the step-by-step instructions on developing it.

4 steps to create a money transfer application

Step 1: Market research

It’s good to do market research before a company starts developing an app of any type. Regional market and target audience research help understand what people in this region need, what their purchasing behaviors are, what the competitors do, and what strategies helped them (or not) to succeed, as well as how the financial market regulation is. 

Step 2: Prototype (design)

It’s better to start with one mobile platform (Android or iOS) when a company’s budget for development has limits. This way keeps the opportunities for expanding in the future, as Native apps allow that, while cross platforms don’t.

Another recommendation is to consider designing an application both to work well on a desktop and on other devices: mobile phones, tablets.

Step 3: Software development

At this stage, the basic functionality of a wished money transfer application is developed. Here we should remember about security, scalability, compliance with legal regulations, and working perfectly on different devices.

Step 4: Testing

This stage is important, as it helps to guarantee the developed software provides a great user experience. It also helps find and fix all bugs at an early stage.

It’s also essential to make sure the created product follows all necessary legal requirements.

These are all key steps of a money transfer app development

The next common questions are: “How long does it take to create a money transfer app?” and “How much is that?” So, further, we will talk about these items.

Development period and price

On average, the development time of the main functionality for an app with no specific features takes 3-5 months. It always depends on the complexity of an app. In cases when a large-scale and complex application is planned, the terms increase.

As for the cost, first of all, it depends on how many hours a mobile application development company will need to create a certain product. The price also depends on the choice of technology and the specifications wanted. The approximate one In Brivian is $40-60 thousand.

Let’s sum up

Making money transfer apps is a promising area of software development. That’s a very useful tool in business operating. 

The team of our company can develop a custom money transfer software meeting a unique set of requirements and needs.  Our skilled managers are ready to answer any questions. Contact us to know more about the price of the wanted app development. Our managers will consult you in detail. Brivian has developed apps and supported businesses for 8 years.

It’s enough just to fill in the form below the article or here to get our feedback.

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