How to Create a P2P Payment Mobile App for Money Transfers

Peer to Peer Payments (P2P) are transactions used to transfer money from one person to another among bank cardholders or personal accounts by means of online services or mobile apps.

According to eMarketer’s forecast, more than half of smartphone users (52.5%) will make at least one P2P transaction per month by the end of 2022 in the USA. That will be tens of millions of people, and P2P payments constantly continue to grow in popularity.

This statistic data presents the number of adult mobile phone peer-to-peer (P2P) payment users in the United States from 2016 to 2021:

[source: Statista.com]

PayPal was one of the first services of the sort. However, many other players like Stripe, Cash App, TransferWise, Venmo, and others have appeared on the market over time. The market continues to grow and develop. Consequently, if you have an idea for a mobile P2P payment product, you have a chance of success once it is implemented correctly.

[source: thinkwithgoogle.com]

“According to the survey, the P2P payment mobile app users are forecasted to grow to 1.31 billion in 2023 and expected to generate $3,081 billion global mobile payment market size by 2024.”

If all these figures inspire you to invest in mobile P2P app development, this article will tell you what it should be like to meet user expectations. We will also share some tips on how to make your product successful.

8 Core Features to Include in Your P2P Mobile Payment App

1. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Mobile payment app development requires a high level of security. It is necessary to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data and minimize other possible risks. Multi-factor authentication does this job very well by adding an extra security layer.

2. Send/Request Money

This function is a key feature for any peer-to-peer money transfer app. It does not matter whether you implement it using a peer-to-peer money transfer API or develop your own platform. In both cases, you have to adhere to the 3S rule: Safety, Speed, and Simplicity.

3. User Wallet

That is the place where your app centrally keeps data on user accounts and bank cards. This feature also allows users to quickly check funds available to be applied. Do not forget the function allowing your app to scan bank cards and add them to an account quickly.

4. Transaction History

This feature implies saving data on incoming and outgoing payments, as well as filtering them according to different periods. If necessary, the function will allow users to find data on a specific payment made at any time.

5. In-app Messages and Push Notifications

The function allows your app to send instant messages to users to inform them of money transferred or accrued. You can also use this feature for marketing purposes, for example, to notify users about new promotions or offers, etc.

6. User Account Settings

A user’s personal account makes using a mobile app a lot more convenient even with minimal functionality. Here, you can implement such features as choosing a preferred money send method and personal data management.

7. Messaging

This feature is optional for a P2P app, but if implemented, it can add value to the app for your target audience. Users sometimes need to send specific information while making transactions. Surely, it would be better to add such a message to the transfer right in the app and without using third-party messengers.

8. Sync It with Contact List

For a peer-to-peer payments app, that is both a helpful feature for users and a good marketing tool used to quickly expand an active audience. New users who have just installed the app can see which of their contacts they can exchange money with right away.

How to Develop a P2P Payment App: Useful Tips & Tricks

• Targeting a specific niche is one of the key factors to achieve success. It can be a specific segment of the target audience. Using this approach at the start, you can avoid direct competition with such large players as Stripe.
• An elaborated onboarding process is essential for any mobile app. Moreover, it is even more important for apps related to financial services. Since user attraction is quite costly, you have to quickly and clearly tell your potential users about your product advantages and capabilities right at the first app launch.

[by by Aan Ragil Julianko]

• The more complex the product you plan to create is, the more reasons you have to start its development as an MVP. This approach allows you to quickly get feedback from users, test your anticipations, and determine the correct development direction. Read more about MVPs here.
• Testing, testing, and more testing even when it comes to an MVP. If you want to create a mobile p2p payment app, it’s may offer a minimum of functions at the start, but the ones already implemented must work flawlessly. Otherwise, users will just uninstall the app from their devices if they face plenty of technical problems at the start.
• Safety is a center point. When it comes to a financial app, users can forgive you an imperfect UI, a small feature set, and even slow performance. However, they want to be 100% sure that their money and personal data are safe.
• If possible, use third-party APIs and ready-made solutions (libraries, frameworks, UI kits). There is no point in wasting money and time on developing each function from scratch when you can already find proper ready-made solutions on the market.

Conclusion

Developing a P2P payment mobile app is a promising idea. The array of smartphone users is constantly growing, and mobile payments are becoming increasingly relevant. The cost of P2P money transfer app development will depend on many factors. Please read more about them in this article.

You can start by researching your potential target audience and the market and then define a list of features that such a product should have. After you describe your idea in detail, you can start looking for a development team to engage them in its implementation.

If you are interested in creating a product related to P2P payments, we can assess its development cost and help you implement your project. Please contact us, and we will be glad to answer all the questions you have.