Norway's Vipps app set to enable money transfers across Europe
Vipps users in Norway could be able to send funds to the three southern European countries and Poland by next summer, Vipps MobilePay said in a press release on Thursday.
The company has joined up with several other European money-sharing platforms as part of a project to connect users across borders.
That should mean that a Vipps user in Norway may be able to send money to a user of the Spanish payment app Bizum in the same way they currently send funds to other Vipps users.
Other platforms based in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland joining the project mean that its eventual reach could be 100 million users of the various apps across Europe.
Additional countries could also join the network in future, according to Vipps MobilePay.
"We are now starting to make the solutions work together, which is called interoperability. Even though the wallets look the same on the outside, they are built very differently. We are starting with 'person to person', and then moving on to 'person to business', Rune Garborg, CEO at Vipps MobilePay, said in a press release.
Vipps users in Norway can already send funds to MobilePay or Vipps users in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland,
with the platforms in each of the Nordic countries already linked
.
Sweden, like Norway, uses Vipps, while Finland and Denmark use MobilePay. The two apps have around 12 million users across the four countries.
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Cross-border payments within the Nordic region currently incur a fee of four percent, charged by Vipps MobilePay. This is on top of currency conversion surcharges.
Vipps MobilePay hasn't yet confirmed whether fees will apply to new countries, or what those fees might be when introduced.
In order to use Vipps in Norway, users need to have an account with a Norwegian bank and at least one personal debit or credit card issued by a Norwegian bank. Users also need a Norwegian social security number in order to verify their identity with the BankID electronic ID, and a Norwegian phone number.
READ ALSO:
Which Norwegian banks issue BankID to foreigners with a D-number?
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