Canadian fintech Mogo is going to get into the Person-to-Person (P2P) business to compete with what it feels is a less than ideal offering through payment network, Interac, and U.S. providers like Venmo and Square Cash. The product is expected to launch in 2021.
I am not sure why Mogo wants to announce a product so far in advance of its implementation. It can’t be that the company is waiting for new features from Canada’s national real-time network, Real Time Rails (RTR). That solution isn’t expected to be launched until 2022.
Mogo is something of a neo bank that offers account, budgeting, and spending capabilities through a prepaid card. The company also offer personal loans and mortgages. It also has a company focus on the environment and reducing its users’ carbon footprint.
Here’s what Finextra had to say about Mogo’s product announcement:
Mogo Inc. (TSX:MOGO) (NASDAQ:MOGO) (“Mogo” or “the Company”), one of Canada’s leading financial technology companies, today announced plans to launch a mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solution that will enable users to quickly and easily make and share payments with friends and family through Mogo’s mobile app. The Company expects to launch the solution in Q1 2021.
“As more Canadians embrace the convenience of a cashless life, we expect to see growing demand for mobile, next-generation payment solutions that let users send and receive money instantaneously from their smartphone,” said David Feller, Mogo’s Founder & CEO. “The primary method in Canada today – bank-to-bank transfers using Interac – does not offer the digital user experience consumers now expect as evidenced by the rising popularity of Square’s Cash App, PayPal’s Venmo app and others in the U.S. market. Peer-to-peer payment is a natural extension of our digital platform and will complement and seamlessly integrate with our other products such as MogoSpend, giving our more than 1 million Mogo members even more utility and value.”
Today, Canadians rely primarily on Interac e-transfers for peer-to-peer payments1. In 2019, there were more than 486 million of these transactions totaling $169 billion2. As more aspects of our lives go digital, these numbers will continue to grow and form a larger part of the almost $10 trillion payments landscape in Canada.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit and Alternative Products Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group