Although I believe that Natwest Fastpay is probably the best value for money online payment service, it could do with some improvement. The ideal user of Natwest Fastpay is someone who has to send their mate a tenner, or even (and I use this quite often) transferring money between different bank accounts. Transactions are carried out swiftly and with a reassuring amount of checks along the way. A big mistake is the fact that you can only use Internet Explorer to access their site. Whether this is because of lazy web designers or inexperienced ones, I don’t know, but it is a definite minus point to the many alternative browser users out there.
The basic premise of any online payment system is getting money from A to B without too much hassle. The biggest market is probably online auction payments, but you still may want to send your Aunt Freda a tenner to get the latest Justin Timberlake album. So you go along to www.natwestfastpay.com or www.moneybymouse.com (they are
both the same service except slightly different site content) and click to signup. You go through a few signup pages, containing the usual name, address, etc. Then you register a credit/debit card or bank account. They accept Visa, MasterCard, Visa Delta, Switch, Solo, Visa Electron, and any bank account that accept direct debits. As a security measure they debit your chosen payment method with an amount between 1p and 99p and ask you to enter this figure from your bank statement. If you have online banking then you could have this confirmation within a few minutes if you use your debit card.
You don’t have to wait for the confirmation amount to appear on your account before using the service, as you can send up to £100 before you must enter the amount of debit from your account. It’s all quite straight forward and is explained as you go through the process.
Sending money is a breeze. You just log in and click on pay money in. Say you want to send your mate a tenner you owe him. Just enter the amount of £10.20 to put into your account and then ok it. Don’t forget you need the extra 20p because Fastpay charges for sending payments. Once the money is deposited in your account (immediately for debit/credit cards & 4 working days for bank deposits) you click on the send money section. So if you want to send the £10.00 to your mate you just enter either his email address, or mobile numbers and then send it. In order for your mate to get the money, he will already have to be a member of Fastpay, or he will be taken through the registration process when he goes to collect the money.
This is a neat little feature with Fastpay, you can use your mobile number to send and receive payments. Although this feature will only start becoming useful when more people have access to the internet, or can sign up over the telephone in the first place. If you have friends that have no access to the internet, then you are pretty much stuck with cheques and postal orders. If nothing else, its nice to know the feature is there if you ever find a need to use it, as you can use their telephone service to process transactions.
The lacking part of Fastpay, is the non existence of true e-commerce integration. Basic ‘buy now’ buttons are provided for business users, but I haven’t really seen them widely displayed around the internet. It does seem as if Natwest are waiting to see if the service will take off before spending too much money on it.
The feature which can be useful if that you can have multiple payment sources. I have my two main debit card registered so that I can transfer the money between bank accounts faster than normal transfer and only costing 20p. I live in a village and the only bank is the Halifax. My other account is with Natwest in a town 10 miles away. Instead of doing a 20 mile round trip to deposit money, I just put the money in my Halifax account, deposit it into Fastpay and then withdraw it to my Natwest account. The whole operation takes seconds, and the transfer only takes three days if you use debit cards which is one whole day faster than bank transfer. Not bad for 20p.
Withdrawing money is simple enough, by just entering the amount and clicking a couple of buttons you will have your money in three days. Bank deposits take four days both in and out, and really are just a concession to people who have no access to a debit card.
Compared to the other two online payments services more widely used the costs work out as follows for sending £20.
Natwest Fastpay 20p Paypal FREE to send, although if your recipient wants to access your payment they will most probably have to upgrade their account and get charged for the payment which will be approx 88p Nochex £1 for depositing money.
For basic sending of money back and forth, or accepting online auction payments, Natwest Fastpay is definitely a service that you should investigate. It could do with a few minor adjustments like browser acceptance, shopping cart integration, more sponsorship. Currently only CD Wow is the big name to accept Fastpay, but I am sure this will change in time.
I have accounts with many of the payments services, but Natwest Fastpay is the one that I prefer using for payments within the UK.
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