UK bank-backed mobile payment service Paym has confirmed that 20 new institutions have signed up to use the service, with first direct the first into production with a live roll-out.
Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Cumberland Building Society, Danske Bank, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Santander and TSB already offer Paym to their combined 30 million customer accounts. So far 1.4 million have signed up for the service, which enables users to transfer cash to friends using just a mobile phone number.
The second phase expansion will take Paym to an additional 10 million prospective accounts as six more brands - Clydesdale Bank, Isle of Man Bank, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and Yorkshire Bank - confirm plans to introduce the service later this year. Ipagoo, Metro Bank, Nationwide Building Society and Tesco Bank have also announced their intention to join in 2015.
Jemma Smith, director of communications and education at the Payments Council, says: "The service has the potential to link up every bank account in the country with a mobile number - it's a great example of industry-wide collaboration that delivers an easy to use, secure new way to pay for customers."
The news comes just weeks after VocaLink-backed mobile payment venture Zapp claimed to have won the the largest coalition of retailer support for a new payment method ever announced in the UK, as leading brands representing a customer base of some 35 million people sign up ahead of a projected 2015 launch.
Both Zapp and Paym are riding on the rails of the UK's Faster Payments system to deliver near-instant real-time payments services to customers through integration with bank mobile apps.