Global banking and financial services giant Barclays has entered the mobile money market by releasing Pingit, a mobile person-to-person (p2p) payment service. The Pingit app (available for Android, BlackBerry and iOS devices) allows users to receive and send money using their mobile phones.

With the launch of Pingit Barclays tries to gain ground in the emerging mobile payment market. At the moment the service is limited to customers that have a Barclays UK current account and a UK mobile phone number but will be will be available for all UK current account customers soon.

Pingit links the user’s bank account with their mobile phone number. This allows customers to send and receive money using their mobile phone number without the need to share bank details. The actual transaction is processed using the Faster Payments service and takes just a few seconds so complete.

Check out the video to see how Barclays Pingit service works: