Four of Ireland's largest banks have committed a further €5 million to the establishment of a multibank payments app as a rival to alternative offerings from non-bank competitiors like Revolut.
The app - dubbed Yippay - is being developed by a joint venture company called Synch Payments that’s owned by Bank of Ireland, AIB, Permanent TSB and KBC Ireland and is headed by Inez Cooper. The JV is understood to have contracted with Italian firm SIA to build the product.
The banks have so far stumped up €5.9 million of initial capital to get the JV off the ground.
For latest capital injection, documents filed with the Companies Registration Office show that AIB acquired a further €2.3 million of shares in the project while Bank of Ireland bought €1.7 million. Permanent TSB bought €855,000 of stock while KBC Bank Ireland, which is exiting the Irish market, took on an additional €8,500.
“Synch Payments was established by some of Ireland’s leading banks with the aim of transforming digital payments from - and to - consumers and businesses in Ireland through the introduction of a new payments application,” a Synch spokeswoman told the Irish Times. “While the banks remain the shareholders of Synch, it has been established as an independent entity with its own executive management team."
"The recent filings in the Companies Registration Office relate to a scheduled share allocation among our existing shareholders. The additional investment will be used to support both the launch of the business and its early growth plans,” she added.
Slated for launch next year, Synch Payments has reapplied to the the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), for approval to run the project after an earlier application in January of this year failed to provide sufficient information for the watchdog to make a judgement.
The plan has been opposed by the Electronic Money Association, which includes competitor companies such as Stripe, Paypal, Facebook and Revolut.