A new 100% Portuguese ‘competitor to Multibanco’ promises to revolutionise the way we deal with our money, starting as early as this summer.
Abypay – run by Easypay – involves, in the first stage, a smartphone app and “around 50 ATM machines”.
By December, the service will have expanded to at least five more countries.
Said Easypay’s president Sebastião de Lancastre: “We have developed a unique, revolutionary solution that will allow for instant money transfers to anywhere in the world, in any currency, in seconds and with costs of just a few cêntimos”.
The service is so ‘new’ that de Lancastre has not even revealed the other territories involved, as Easypay’s ‘expansion’ is still said to be in the negotiations phase with investors.
All the financial services wizard has told Lusa is that he is working towards “a global reach”.
“The plan for 2017 is very aggressive, with availability to the public via the abypay app by the end of June, and in the second six months, entrance into the network of service providers and the installation of the first ATMs in Portugal”, he said.
Abypay has been a year and a half in the planning and is the first competitor to the now ubiquitous Multibanco network.
Further details are expected to be released soon, but de Lencastre did not miss the opportunity to throw in a dig at the Bank of Portugal, criticising its “positioning over the evolution of companies specialising in electronic payments”.
As banks stand to lose millions if people stop using them for money transfers, it is little wonder that Bank of Portugal has not welcomed Easypay with a flurry of trumpets.
