Last updated on November 9th, 2023
Mobile payments are already a part of everyday life all over the world. People don’t carry as much cash or buy things with money as they used to. According to research from McKinsey, cash payments have dropped considerably, and the number of people who prefer to pay digitally continues to grow. By 2020, 79% of people used payment apps monthly, and 44% used them weekly.
The payments and transactions category is the most funded area of fintech, and the global peer-to-peer Build a Payment App market is expected to be worth $336 billion in 2021. It’s a fast-growing industry that meets the changing needs of mobile users for simple and easy-to-track transactions.
How does a P2P payment app like Zain Cash work, and what is it?
First, let’s look at the technical side of peer-to-peer payments. Peer-to-peer transactions are direct electronic money transfers from one account to another through a payment app. Almost everyone has used PayPal or, more recently, Zain Cash, which was one of the first and most popular peer-to-peer (P2P) payment apps. So how does it work?
You make an account and link it to your credit card or bank account. Also, you can send someone money by using their email address, phone number, or bank account. Most of the time, passwords or other information about the sender and receiver are used to ensure that a transaction is confirmed. P2P systems let people with bank cards send money to each other without going through intermediaries. This saves you money on commissions. Most of the time, these apps are free, but if your money comes from a different source, you may have to pay a small fee. To pay, users need a smartphone, computer, and an app that can be downloaded from the Internet—no confusion about money or long lines at the bank. Everything is straightforward to understand.
Most of the time, these apps let you send money to users of different banks, which makes transactions easy. Depending on the payment type, it can take a few minutes to several hours to process a payment. P2P systems can be used for many different things. You can use these apps to pay for services, buy something on the Internet, send and receive requests to borrow money, make payments across borders, and more.
Important Article: Sunmi OS: Create Unique Payment Experiences with Custom POS Software Development
How to Make a Payment App Like Zain Cash: Key Steps to Get Started Quickly
1. Make a list of what you need
Choose the type of payment gateway app you need to use to start building a payment platform. As we’ve already talked about, there are four main choices:
- Standalone platform;Â
- System that focuses on banks;
- Platform that focuses on social media;Â
- System that focuses on the mobile OS.
The final cost of making a money transfer app will depend significantly on the type you choose.
You can also start smartly and save money by putting the mobile platform you want to build an app for at the top of your list. For instance, you can start by making your payment gateway app for people who use iOS.
First, this lets you build an Android payment app for less money.
Second, you can learn a lot about the interests and habits of a smaller group of people.
Next, make a list of the features that the MVP must have to launch quickly and cheaply. They should tell end users what your peer-to-peer payment app is all about.
It means that customers should try your least viable product after it comes out and see why it is better than other products on the market. There’s no need to add extra features that would be nice to have since the primary goal of your MVP version is to test your idea and get feedback.
Also, the list of must-have features will help developers of money transfer apps figure out how to make payment apps that meet your technical needs.
The better chance you have of getting the payment gateway app you want, the more features you build into your money transfer app before it is made.
2. Validate Regulation Compliance
In many countries, there are strict rules about p2p payment apps and fintech. It would help if you did a lot of research on the region you want to launch the app in. It’s essential to make sure that your peer-to-peer payment app follows all the rules.
Make sure your app meets all PCI-DSS or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or, requirements and any specific rules. It is the only standard that must be met, and it has 12 conditions that must be met to handle cardholder data and become a service provider for card payment transactions.
Get the PCI-DSS certificate before you launch your peer-to-peer payment app to make it more open and trustworthy.
3. Plan the UI and UX
For your product to compete and do well, it must have a modern user interface that looks good.
The interface is the first and most important thing your end users will see.
The more modern and cool your design is, the more likely users will love it. Find the sweet spot between being unique and easy to use to connect with customers.
Competitors are watching out for you.
There are dozens or even hundreds of products on the market that are the same. This means that your competitors are also trying to keep up with the latest design trends and impress end users with new “killer features” for the interface. Think outside the box and start from scratch to create a high-quality user interface and experience.
By looking at the designs posted on Pinterest, Dribbble, and Designspiration by other companies and professionals, you can get ideas and improve your visual skills.
We suggest making a clickable prototype, mockup, or wireframe that shows how the final user will move through the site. This will give you a lot of information about how people will use your payment gateway app.
4. Make features for the MVP
Once you’re working on your design, you can start putting in the must-have MVP features you’ve chosen. There are many ways to get ahead:
Hire a company that makes money transfer apps to do the work.
Follow these simple rules if you hire a company to build a payment platform. They will help you find the most trustworthy and experienced service provider.
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Check to see if a company has a good portfolio
If a company shows its background on a blob, that should signal that you should recheck its specific skills. Think about companies that have built payment apps and know how to do it well. This will save your business a lot of time and money.
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Check the reviews to make sure the business is honest
If the provider can’t show reviews and testimonials from past clients, there’s no reason to trust what it says and think of it as an outsourcing company.
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Find out if a company offers flexible ways to work together
The project development process will likely run into scalability problems if the company has flexible engagement models.
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Make sure that the provider you choose has a project discovery phase
If the service provider doesn’t offer a project discovery phase, that should signal that the work might not be of high quality. Most of the time, find one contributing to a project discovery session. This helps the team working on the project and the client understand it better.
Use freelancing
Money transfer app developers who work as freelancers can be a great choice because they can offer high-quality services for less than the market rate. When hiring freelancers, we suggest that you keep the following in mind.
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Don’t always choose the lowest price
Don’t go with the lowest prices on the platform. They often mean that freelance specialists’ work has the little background and could be better. But you can still find a team of experienced app developers who can make a money transfer app at a price you can afford.
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Pay close attention to how people talk to each other
Better not to work with freelancers from other countries who have trouble communicating or have a low level of English. This will directly affect the quality of the peer-to-peer payment app in the end, as the provider should know precisely what you need.
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Find and read testimonials from clients
Working with freelance money transfer app developers is hard because they often miss deadlines. Read the team’s reviews carefully to find out what other entrepreneurs have said about working with it.
Find a technical partner or CTO
Finding a technical partner for your online payment project is a great idea, but it will take time and cost money. You will spend a lot of time trying to find a perfect match, which will make the time-to-market longer and require much of your work.
Still, CTOÂ and an ideal technical partner should know precisely how to build a peer-to-peer payment app, build an experience technical team, find talented people, and bring your payment gateway app to market.
5. Launch, Feedback, Scale
Once the app’s design and features are ready, you should deploy the new version to production and launch the app. The main goal here is to find out if your project idea is good or not based on what early users say.
Process any comments to get as much information as possible from users. The information gathered should show what to change, add, or take away. Then, turn these notes into a detailed technical specification that app developers can use to improve and grow their money transfer apps.
You can do test launches and MVP releases more than once. This is normal since your main goal is to change the minimum viable product and learn how to build a full-featured mobile payment system for end users. It should be able to handle thousands of users and stay stable when there are a lot of them.
Related Article: 10 Popular Mobile App Payment Gateways – A Complete Guide
Do you want to create a Payment App Like Zain Cash?
Consumers are moving toward digital and especially mobile payments, and there is more demand than ever for money apps. If you want to make an app that lets people send money to each other, find out what features already work for competitors and what features your target users expect to have. iTechnolabs is leading Mobile App Development company that has done a lot of work in developing Apps like Zain Cash.
