How to Build a Money Transfer App

Some of us still remember standing in long banking queues to send money to an addressee. However, the representatives of Generation Z, sometimes even do not know what the bank looks like inside.

The statistics show that today around 70% of smartphone users transfer means to another individual via mobile money transfer apps. With a few simple taps money can be transferred from person to person, or company to company quickly and seamlessly yet securely.

No wonder, the development of apps like Revolut, launched in 2015, has gained momentum in the last few years. This platform is now valued at $40 billion. Being just one player in this market, it demonstrates the general upward trend.

By 2032 the Global Market of Mobile Payments is anticipated to exceed $2983.9 Billion, growing at a CAGR of 12.22%. It is expected to benefit from an increase in the use of NFC, host card emulation, and RFID technologies. The growing number of customers who prefer cashless purchases and the popularity of subscriptions for software, entertainment, and other goods and services are also boosting the demand for hassle-free mobile recurring payment options.

With all the above mentioned, there can be no even the slightest doubt that money transfer application development is a beneficial and promising undertaking. We are going to look closer at it today.

What is a Money Transfer App?

A money transfer app is a software solution that helps people make financial transactions using their portable electronic devices. The applications allow purchasing goods or services, checking out on mobile e-commerce sites and even sending money to friends and family.

Smartphones, being always around are becoming today the most convenient way of payment. They substitute not only cash but also credit cards. So, to provide a seamless online or in-store customer experience lots of businesses incorporate mobile payments in addition to standard credit card processing methods.

That’s why by developing a money transfer application you can help businesses and individuals to introduce solutions for easy, fast, and secure money transfers, domestic and cross-border. Let’s look into different types of applications to have a better picture of what is in demand today.

Types of Money Transfer Apps

There are 3 main types of money-transferring solutions worth mentioning.

Mobile OS systems

You may be surprised, but Apple Pay and Android Pay allow P2P payments. NFC technology grows in popularity and so does app software. Yet, the systems have drawbacks. A user can only make money transfers within the same system and the area of usage is restricted. G-pay stopped this service in the US in June 2024, for instance.

Anyway, these are the mobile OS systems examples.

Independent services

Independent services allow card payments through electronic wallets for P2P transfers. PayPal is a well-known service that tops the list. You could also have heard of Venmo, Stripe, and some others. The weak side of these services is that they as a minimum support MasterCard and Visa types.

Banking services online

Traditional banking is becoming outdated. So, banks are keeping abreast of trends to get their space in the digital sphere. P2P payments are a perfect example of this. Zelle, Chase QuickPay, and Popmoney can be mentioned as bank-centric applications.

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Key Features of a Money Transfer Application

To make your money transfer app development successful, you should define the core features and not hurry with the optional ones. So, we are proceeding to the list.

Security and Compliance

In a sensitive financial matter security and compliance should go without saying. So, make it your focus from the very beginning and provide your app users with:

Multi-factor authentication, where biometric verification can be one of the steps. Facial recognition or fingerprint is a widely used practice.

• Data encryption, and asymmetric encryption for transfers in cryptocurrency in particular,
• AI-powered fraud detection,
• E-signature for transactions,
• Alerts on the SAR suspicious activity detected,
• Automated SARs,
• Compliance with all the relevant industry-specific, country-based, and international regulations. They are ISO 20022, GDPR, KYC, AML, PCI DSS, PSD2, and more.

Bill payments

This is about the convenience of paying bills from any place and at any time online. You allow your customers to pay their bills without hassle and get a loyal audience. It’s a valuable competitive advantage nowadays.

Payment statistics

Users value the possibility of seeing the transactions and their history. A sound idea is to provide the opportunity to visualize these statistics and filter them by such criteria as status, receiver, volume, and possibly country. So, while building a money transfer app think of the necessary set of features for the purpose.

Keep in mind to make your user experience smooth and software solution convenient and user-friendly. It will help you attract and keep those users, who like to manage and analyze their finances.

Online ID check

The process of online ID verification helps to ensure a user is who they claim to be and deals with a real individual during a money transfer. By making your payment system safe for consumers with online ID checks, you prevent any kind of fraudulent actions with your application. Customers like to feel safe and protected, especially in money matters. That’s why at minimum automated verification requests and money limits to set are worth your consideration.

E-wallets

Electronic wallets come in various forms. They differ from banks and can be applications or mobile services allowing online transactions. E-wallet integration allows users to interact with the service and make contactless payments in various countries. It relieves modern people of the necessity to open multiple bank accounts for different currencies and countries.

Notifications and Alerts

Notifications are essential, they keep users informed of the actions and state of things within their banking account: transaction status, monthly subscriptions due, and payments due, pending or successful.

International transfers/Currency exchange

International online transfers are growing in demand.

Integrating the possibility, you will relieve people of the necessity to go and do it physically in the bank. It will enable users to send and receive means within a few seconds and swipes. So, just do it and gain ardent customers for your app. If you manage to keep fees low and add value to your solution through the currency exchange feature integration you are sure to stand out in the market.

Let’s proceed to the process of development and check how to build a money transfer app.

How to Create a Money Transfer App in 7 Steps

The secret ingredient of a successful money transfer application creation is a professional development team. They can make this process smooth for you. Before the development as it is you should make the initial step – research the market.

Market Research

This is the first step in the process of any software development. It allows us to gain a comprehensive picture of the up-to-date market, products, and players. This step is crucial before diving into development. It helps to understand the competitors and the overall competitor landscape. You should define your target customers and validate your concept through an accurate discovery. By becoming aware of the products represented in the market, you can spot their strengths and weaknesses. Thus you identify potential gaps that can be filled with your product. The market’s leaders and outsiders can teach you a lesson about what to do and what for sure not to do. So, you can sketch a list of requirements and based on the research ensure you are going to craft something outstanding in the market.

When all the details are clear you can proceed to the next stage.

Optimal tech stack selection

At this stage, the decision is made on how to create a money transfer app. The choice of a tech stack starts from the choice of platform. Whether you are going to create a native Android or iOS solution or a cross-platform application determines all the technical aspects: programming language and tools, features and integrations, specialists needed, and budget required. It should be kept in mind that there is no better or worse option, each variant has benefits and drawbacks. You should simply weigh all the options and it’s better to rely on expert advice. There are technologies that can save your budget, like Flutter, and there are those not so beneficial. So, let the professional development team make the choice and realize the project for you.

UI/UX Design

Developers and engineers are in charge of everything in the back end of your software solution. They make sure your app does its job. Unlikely you can influence it, if you are not a developer yourself. However, you can influence UX and UI design, since it plays a critical role for the users. Poor UX can cause the loss of clients once and forever. A user-friendly app in its turn can help you stand out among the competitors and keep users returning to your software solution again and again. Create a customer journey map and get insights into the way a user will interact with your application and reach their goal. Make sure their way is effortless and without unnecessary obstacles. Remember: satisfied clients drive higher conversions.

Development and testing of the application

This is the most critical part of the whole development process. Developers make magic and turn the desired design and functionality into a code, which is the core of any app. This stage, as a rule, comprises front-end and back-end development, when the developers ensure each feature and function operates seamlessly, ensuring a smooth customer journey, and meeting security and business logic requirements.

Security

Even the top 10 Android applications were found leaking data of millions of users who downloaded them (names, usernames, emails, and more). It happened because of Firebase misconfigurations. With money-related datum, the breach can cause significant financial and, what’s more important, reputational damage to the company. So, to protect your users when sending money turn to security best practices: user authentication and authorization, secure APIs, and data encryption, at minimum.

Testing

Rigorous testing is vital before unleashing your software solution on a wide audience. Testers find and fix bugs, deal with technical issues and security flaws, evaluate performance, and make sure user experience is smooth across different platforms and devices.

Unit, functional, acceptance, and regression testing are advisable to detect possible issues. Each test should cover all features and use cases. If something is detected it should be fixed and the affected module retested.

Deployment of the application

To make your mobile money transfer application available to the world you should submit it to the relevant app store or platform. App Store for Apple or Google Play for Android are the most common ones.

At Stfalcon we often do it for our customers, because these platforms demand detailed descriptions and screenshots adhering to their guidelines. Our specialists are experts in this, while an ordinary individual can fail to do everything right the first time. When the long-awaited approval is gained, your app can be downloaded and enjoyed by its users.

However, continuous updates, adaptations, and user feedback are part of the exciting journey, which begins with the app launch. Still, this adventure is exciting, so let’s see why you should take the chance and craft a money transfer app now.

Reasons to Build Your Custom Money Transfer App

We have overviewed the Global Market of Mobile Payments and the soil is quite promising. But why should you create your own application for money matters? Let’s look at the reasons.

No matter if you are a business owner or have an idea to create a money transfer app for a wide audience.

Everything is shifting to online.

People nowadays have no time and wish to stay in one place for a long period. That’s why everything is moving online, becomes mobile, and spins around applications. Why turn to physical banking institutions with their long queues and paperwork? You can simply use a mobile app and make a payment, transaction, or money transfer with a tap. Provide your user with extended functionality, as Revolut did, and gain those who are interested in cryptocurrencies, blockchain, insurance, splitting payments, or virtual saving accounts. Users value having one-stop-shop solutions not to run from an app to an app for diverse operations.

The demand is growing.

After the appearance of Revolut, lots of neo-banking fintech solutions have appeared. Though they develop peer-to-peer payment infrastructure, they still fail to cover the growing demand. Migration and globalization are rising continuously, people send means abroad to their family members and require safe money transfer software due to the growing remittance flows. So, by keeping an eye on migration patterns and economic data and modifying services and policies, money-transferring services can win the competition in the international arena.

Businesses need mobile financial services.

Not only individuals, but businesses can use fintech software. It reveals opportunities for e-commerce platforms, new collaborations, and the growth of the neo-banking sphere. Modern customers are placing greater emphasis on convenience, speed, and dependability. So e-commerce platforms and businesses are eager to provide them with this. Improved customer experience promotes loyalty to businesses that are ready to invest in mobile money transfer applications.

If you manage to provide them with a solution with seamless integration and one that allows international payments, you are sure to benefit.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Custom Money Transfer App?

A custom money transfer app cannot be simple. So the cost of development can not be expected low. As with any software, many aspects and factors influence the project budget. They are app complexity, tech stack, type of cooperation with a development team, level of experts, and more. If you want a rough figure, then US $150,000 is what you need for a basic app with all the regulations and requirements met. An MVP creation may cost you around US $25,000. For a complex solution with a full-featured extended functionality, there’s, in fact, no limit in price. After the development follow maintenance, support, and updates.

Why Develop a Money Transfer App with Stfalcon

Stfalcon has been in development for about 15 years. Though not all the solutions were Fintech, almost every software product required payment system integration. So, we know nearly everything about the international regulations. What's more, we carried out some projects with very specific payment systems. We are not afraid of challenges and have enough expertise to deal with sensitive financial matters.

This expertise has been manifested in a project for the biggest French bank, which also belongs to the group of the biggest companies in France. Stfalcon had to develop an interface design for payment kiosks to release the bank of queues and cashiers of some work. As the client mentioned in their feedback, our team went above and beyond the initial scope of the project.

Read the full case study

Stfalcon’s portfolio includes the project of SDK for Android and IOS mobile platforms creation. The SDK was for a crypto wallet and was based on the Kotlin Multi Platform. Our team managed to develop a ready-to-use SDK, which integrates business logic and encapsulates all internal processes responsible for encryption, storage, and authorization.

Read the full case study

Conclusion

Stfalcon knows how to develop a money transfer app that can stand out in the market. Our expertise and portfolio are good backing for any project we take. What's more, we like challenges, and for fintech projects challenges are abundant. Millions of users appreciate our apps worldwide and can be sure of their security.

Since the Russian invasion, security is a special matter for Ukrainians and the Stfalcon team in particular. If you still hesitate, contact us today and make sure that together we have the potential to offer the market of money transfer solutions something quite special.

Some outline to enlighten the most common questions about money transfer apps.