Someone in London just bought a house with an app
For the first time ever customers will be able to buy houses using their smartphones, thanks to a new partnership between Barclays and Savills Auctions.
Barclays Pingit app was used to make a deposit for the first time this month – by a homeowner who splashed out £23,000 on a house in Mitcham, South London.
Savills Auctions customers will be able to make a deposit by scanning a Savills QR code from within the Pingit app. The app shows the transaction details name and the money is transferred once the customer selects the 'ok' option.
Darren Foulds, Barclays Mobile Banking and Pingit product director said:
This shows the potential for mobile payments as services like Pingit gain more widespread use. For quick, secure transactions on the go, mobile is fast-becoming a trusted method of making payments – whether from person-to-person or, as in this case, to pay a business.
The Barclays Pingit app has been downloaded 2.5m times since it was launched in February 2012, with the total amount of money sent using the service reaching £350m.
The ability to buy a house using smart devices will add to what is already a rapidly growing trend of mobile payments.
The Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) forecasts that, by 2020, 20m adults will use their mobile devices to pay for goods and services. The CEBR predict that the total value of mobile payments could reach over £18bn by 2018.