news ANALYSIS

Barclays confirms its P2P service Pingit will close on 30 June

13 April 2021

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arclays has confirmed the closure of its payments service Pingit, announcing June 30 as the app’s official shutting date.

This month, Barclays wrote to Pingit customers informing them that from June 30 they will no longer be able to use the app to send, receive or make payments. This comes almost ten years after Pingit’s initial launch.

The bank has said that customer cash stored in Pingit savings jars will be transferred back to the linked account.

Where did it all go wrong for the P2P service? Over the years, experts have criticised the app for failing to capitalise on early innovation.

When it launched in 2012 it didn’t offer much new in the way of paying P2P transfers. You could say this was a missed opportunity by Barclays and a potential nod to its downfall.

Covid-19 has also likely played a factor in Pingit’s demise as hard times have caused increased uncertainty for many fintechs alike. For instance, the platform joins a series of bank-endorsed fintechs heading for the scrap heap, such as JP Morgan’s Finn and RBS’ Bó.

RBS’ Bó was deemed by many as a disaster, closing only six months after its initial launch. Speaking at the time, chief executive at NatWest, Alison Rose, suggested that coronavirus had a part to play in the challenger’s short life span.

Furthermore, the last major overhaul of Pingit came in 2019, when Barclays moved BPay wearables onto the Pingit platform. The move meant customers could buy accessories, such as wristbands, rings and key fobs, that could be used as payment devices.

However, adoption levels for BPay were low at the time and clearly didn’t add much to the Pingit brand.