HSBC Holdings plans to release an app with which financial services consumers will be able to make international payment transactions.
The media notes that this intention of the specified bank may mean the emergence of a new strong competitor for such major players in the fintech industry as Revolut and Wise. Currently, the mentioned companies serve tens of millions of retail customers by offering them cheap foreign currency.
According to information released by the media, the app that the financial institution plans to launch will be called Zing. This digital product will initially be offered to consumers residing in the United Kingdom. In the coming months, the financial institution intends to launch the app in other countries. So far, there is no information about the further geography of the distribution of the new offer from one of the largest players in the global banking industry.
With the help of Zing, the financial institution plans to gain its share in the market for servicing wealthy consumers, which is currently showing a growing trend.
In the coming days, the app will be launched on Apple’s Appstore and Alphabet’s Google Play. It should be clarified that access to this digital product will be provided to consumers who are not HSBC customers. Nuno Matos, chief executive officer of the lender’s global wealth and personal banking business, said the lender intends to attack the worldwide retail payments market. The representative of the financial institution also noted that the user registration process in the new app takes about three minutes.
Nuno Matos says that Zing’s ambitions are global. Currently, the financial institution is striving to create a platform for international payment transactions. This plan is combined with the bank’s strategy in the sphere of global financial operations. Nuno Matos said that HSBC’s new digital product will soon be introduced in Asia, the Middle East, and the EU markets, without detailing this information.
Zing can be described as a kind of reflection of a global trend, expressed in the fact that large financial institutions are trying to compete with startups providing services in the sphere of money management. Firms, that were initially small organizations, have been able to significantly scale their business over the past decade. Startups that have become major players in the fintech industry offer consumers many different services, including, for example, cross-border payment transactions, savings accounts, and investment products on mobile devices.
Wise’s share price increased by more than 50% last year. Revolut expects its revenue for 2023 to be about $2 billion, which is almost 70% higher than the result for the previous year. These different, but unambiguously positive, performance indicators of the two companies indicate that the business of fintech firms is flourishing. Against this background, large banks cannot help but react. Financial institutions that have something like the status of traditional organizations are starting to offer new products because ignoring current trends will cause damage.
As we have reported earlier, Yoti Receives Funding From HSBC.
