National Australia Bank have this week released a mobile payment service that allows users to send, receive and request payments via NFC, QR codes, a mobile phone number, an email address or even via Facebook.
Similar to Commonwealth Bank’s Kaching app, NAB’s Flik allows users to register for the service in-app, and link their preferred bank account to the service. All this requires is that you have an internet banking username/password, which the app will prompt you for and link up your services. The whole process takes all of about two minutes. It’s pretty easy.
Once set up, the app allows the user to send or request a payment. In either case, the user selects the amount to send/request, and then the method to send that request. The array of options is pretty broad, and basically if someone is in your phone book, you can send or request money from them, and if someone else nearby has an Android device with NFC and the NAB Flik app, you can simply tap the devices together to move your money around.
It’s pretty nifty, and it works as advertised. Perhaps better is that NAB Flik works on rooted devices. If a bank isn’t concerned about letting users move their money around on a rooted device, goodness knows why Australia Post is so afraid of allowing users to deal with mail on rooted devices.. *cough*
If the other party is already registered with NAB Flik, the funds will flow between bank accounts just like an ordinary internet banking transfer. If they aren’t, they’ll receive an email/SMS/notification requesting that they sign up with the Flik service to receive their payment. Even non-NAB customers can use the Flik app to receive payments, but as you might expect, they can’t send payments from non-NAB accounts.
[pb-app-box pname=’com.nab.nabflik’ name=’Flik’ theme=’light’ lang=’en’]
Give it a try, let us know what you think!
