One major Dutch bank is looking to introduce an innovative new way of making payments or transferring money to friends and family; ING has announced it is working to launch a new contactless payment method that works by pointing your mobile phone at another person’s smartphone.

Dutch bank trialling new NEAR technology for app

Working together with Samsung and NXP Semiconductors - a tech company based in Eindhoven - ING is working to develop a so-called peer-to-peer payment method, dubbed NEAR, that allows their customers to make a payment simply by pointing their smartphone at the individual to which they wish to transfer funds.

Kind of like Apple's AirDrop technology, NEAR works by recognising other smartphones in your vicinity that also have the ING app downloaded. The user simply has to select the payee from the list and, voilà! The money will be sent directly to their bank account.

“With this new technology, you can make a peer-to-peer payment to acquaintances as well as strangers simply by holding your phone close to each other,” says Thijs Janssen from the ING Factory. “Users no longer have to exchange their personal data and this makes paying each other even faster and easier, where customized technological payment innovations are developed in co-creation with business customers.” 

Image via ING. 

The future of online banking in the Netherlands?

The Dutch press has already compared NEAR to the exceedingly popular payment platform Tikkie, but ING points out that, unlike its predecessors, NEAR is much quicker and easier to use, and a lot more versatile. 

“Users no longer have to search for each other's username, email address or phone number when they want to buy something at a market, make a donation at a collection point, or split a restaurant bill with friends,” the bank explains on its website.