Open letter to banks: Please make bank transfers easier

Bank transfers are a wonderful method to get paid. Usually it doesn’t involve any commissions, unlike cards.

To make a bank transfer in Europe, one has to know recipient’s name & IBAN, or phone number in case of newer banking apps. Although it gets the job done, it’s cumbersome for customers to enter these details using copy-paste in their banking app.

Proposal

Have a simple system to prefill all payment details using two methods:

1. Web link

There are already Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme standards. For example, a link can open an email with prefilled data such as To, Subject and Body:
<a href=”mailto:marius.andreiana@gmail.com?subject=hello&body=Hey Marius, ">Contact me</a> (click here to try it)

Here are more examples.

Let’s introduce a new URI which does the same for bank transfers:

<a href=”payto:?name=Marius&iban=RO09BCYP0000001234567890&phone=004072123123&currency=EUR&amount=5.00&note=order #123123“>Pay me</a>

When clicking this link, installed banking apps can open it, go directly to Make a Payment screen, prefill all required info and just let the user press Send. Just like a manual payment, but with the details already filled in.

Note that some payment apps don’t require an IBAN, but a phone number, or maybe an username. That’s why both phone & IBAN are specified, so that each app can use what it needs. All fields are optional. For example, if the amount is empty, user would have to fill it in manually.

PayTo: web links would enable initiating payments online, eg for purchases or donations.

2. QR code

The same information as above can be embedded in a QR code, to be used in shops or in street.

Banking apps would have to add an option to “Scan QR code”, which would prefill all information, and just let user press Send.

What do you think?

Looking forward to simpler bank transfers!