Digital bank Revolut has approached Synch Payments, a mobile money-transfer application employed by major Irish banks, with a view to getting involved, it is understood.
Evolut’s customer base in Ireland has grown to over two million and is now seen as a major challenger to traditional banks.
Last week, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission approved plans by major Irish banks to create sync payments. AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB and KBC Bank Ireland created Synch Payments and have been trying to get approval from CCPC for almost two years. It is understood that the payments app – which is seen as a reverse threat response – will be called Yipay.
However, the watchdog imposed a number of conditions to ensure that the founding shareholders of the system would not deny or delay access to the platform for any new market entrants.
Last Thursday, the CCPC said that in response to concerns about early competition, it had received binding commitments from banks.
These include setting objective eligibility criteria for any banks or other financial institutions that wish to participate in the Sync Mobile payments service.
Sync has also set a defined time frame for processing new applications by potential licensees.
In addition, the parties have agreed to establish a governance structure, including independent board members, that would allow SYNC to operate with greater independence from the founding shareholders.
After CCPC’s decision, sources told sunday free that Revolut had contacted the Synch team with a view to joining.
Sync aims to deliver a payments app that will allow those who sign up to send and make payments in real-time.
The plan was communicated by the main banks as a bid to take over the challenging banks.
