Transferring money to someone has changed a lot in the last few decades. In the past, you had to bring your cash to someone else, or send it by post, which was dangerous. The last few years, online banking is very popular. Just a few clicks and your money is transferred safely to that person. With smartphones, applications make it much more easy to transfer money to someone. The convenience and security has greatly improved.
Fast forward today, there is one bank that wants to do it a little bit different. That bank is called Knab. For those of you who have not seen it yet, Knab is Bank in reverse. So what is so special about Knab? Well, Knab allows you to transfer money to your Facebook-friends or friends with a phone number, without knowing the bank account number of that person. The person who wants to transfer money has to be a customer of Knab, whilst the receiver does not. According to Knab, transferring money should be a lot easier using this ‘method’.
However, I have my doubts about Knab. First of all, they say that transferring money should be a lot easier using this ‘method’. I currently have a mobile app of my bank and with it I can easily transfer money to people. Although most of my friends have Facebook, not everyone does. So transferring money to them using this ‘method’ is not possible. And secondly, Facebook has a lot of privacy issues. It collects a lot of data of your Facebook page, and with the integration of Facebook in this Knab application, they can possibly know to whom you are transferring to and what you have transferred.
What do you think about this feature? Would you use it if it were offered to you? Personally, I would not use it, because I prefer using my bank app. I think it’s already very easy and most of all secure. Facebook already knows a lot about me, and I prefer to keep my transactions secret.
Sources:
Wokke, A. (2014) ‘Knab laat klanten geld overmaken naar Facebook-contacten‘, http://tweakers.net/nieuws/98069/knab-laat-klanten-geld-overmaken-naar-facebook-contacten.html, 27 August 2014.
I totally agree with your opinion! I would rather use my bank app too because it’s safer and because it’s already very easy. The possibility to save account numbers of different persons makes it easy. Only the first time you transfer money to a certain person you need his account number, other money transfers to that same person can be easily done using your address book (almost as fast as with KNAB).
I think the idea itself of KNAB is quiet good, but the fact that Facebook had a lot of privacy issues in the past does not give me a secure feeling.
On one thing I disagree with you. One of the disadvantages you mention is: “Although most of my friends have Facebook, not everyone does. So transferring money to them using this ‘method’ is not possible.”
I think this is not a disadvantage of KNAB because a money transfer to people who don’t have a Facebook account can be done the ‘old fashioned’ way, by their account numbers.