Bump Launches Bump Pay
- Bump Technologies unveils Bump Pay, its bump-based P2P payment solution for iPhone. Originally integrated in PayPal’s ecosystem, this solution resembles PayPal’s app on the user’s side. It has been developed by Bump Labs and still relies on PayPal accounts. Once downloaded, it has to be associated to a PayPal account; the user enters the amount he wishes to transfer and taps his phone against the recipient’s phone.
- In 2010, PayPal had integrated this technology in its iPhone and Android apps. When connected, the user had to provide his payment information and bring his phone closer to the recipient’s to send funds.
Source: Mobile Commerce Press
- Basically positioned on P2P content transmission (contacts, images, calendars, etc.), Bump takes its first steps into the mobile payment market with Bump Pay for iOS and Android. The initial Bump app has been especially popular with over 80 million downloads. However discarded by PayPal, which now proposes its own transfer solutions, Bump still relies on its platform and disposes of some funds of its own to provide for its development (19.9 million dollars collected from several investment funds).
- In November 2011, PayPal launched its “Request Money” P2P solution, thus asserting its interest in adopting NFC technology. It now leaves aside the bump-based technology which does not rely on its own API (see November 2011 Insight).
- Unlike other players on the same market, Bump is only operational when both the recipient and the sender are in the same location. One of its rivals, the US start-up Venmo (also specialising in P2P transfers) proposes an app enabling transfers via SMS, through a dedicated app and on the Internet. Venmo has officially been launched end March 2012 after several years of tests (started in 2009).