Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank continues to burnish its mobile credentials with the launch of a person-to-person payments service dubbed People Pay.
The fast-growing P2P payments market has been largely dominated by the likes of Venmo and Square but the big banks are looking to get in on the action with their Zelle network.
Although Zelle is open to banks, BMO Harris is offering up its own option, letting customers send money from its app to recipients, including non-customers. The free service sees money deposited to the recipient's bank account in one to three business days - making it far slower than Zelle's real-time system.
Kyle Barnett, head, North American physical and US Channels, BMO Harris, says: "People Pay is going to enhance and simplify the way our customers pay for a number of things on a monthly basis - everything from rent to splitting a restaurant check between friends. It's easy and convenient."
With the smartphone now at the centre of people's lives, BMO Harris is working hard on a host of mobile services. It recently began letting customers withdraw money from 900 ATMs through its app and has also embraced Mastercard's Masterpass, Android Pay and Samsung Pay.