Republic Bank's Endcash app a safe, secure, simple way to pay

Like the rest of the world, Trinidad and Tobago is slowly but surely going cashless. Aside from TT’s problems accessing foreign exchange, exacerbated by physical restrictions due to covid19, it is becoming more necessary to find a way to conduct business in a cashless and contactless environment. With that push to make all, or at least most financial transactions digital, there is a growing need for safety and security on digital platforms.

So, isn't it good to know that there is a well-established and secure institution that is ready and able to meet your fintech needs?

Republic Bank's General Manager Group Marketing and Communications Karen Tom Yew, in a conversation with Business Day, said their new cashless wallet app, Endcash, will allow customers to safely keep and transact up to $10,000 in digital cash with the support of a bank with over 100 years' experience.

“It is good to know that the End Cash programme is one you could trust,” Tom Yew said.

Endcash is a mobile wallet with social media features. The app can be accessed on both Android and iOS devices and can be downloaded for free from the Apple Store, Google Play Store or through the website www.endcash.com.

With Endcash consumers will be able to load their mobile wallets using any VISA or MasterCard branded card. The digital funds can then be exchanged or transferred to another wallet in exchange for goods and services.

The transfer from profile to profile is instant, meaning that consumers could make instant person to person transfers. The app also facilitates business to customer and business to business payments, so people can pay bills, assist family, get a haircut, or even buy their favourite roadside meal and pay using the app.

Tom Yew said going cashless is one of the main aims of Republic Bank for the future. She said, in that regard, Endcash is a new and sleek way to pay.

“In a nutshell this is just a safe and convenient way for people to transfer funds. Anyone with a phone can use the app for their own personal needs, and it is safe, convenient, quick, easy to use and is handy.”

The app was in development for a year and a half and launched on March 5. The app already has 26 merchants using the application.

Tom Yew told Business Day that while the merchant features also allow for businesses to promote itself on the app, micro-businesses could also use the P2P features for their own business.

“For micro-businesses it is a safe way to receive funds, for SMEs it is a better way to earn cash.” Merchants would have to produce key documents including proof of incorporation, and sole trader information like a national insurance number, business registration and other key pieces of information which proves that it is a legitimate business.

The app itself is also protected with multiple firewalls and encryptions to ensure that the app and by extension the consumers’ information is not compromised.

“We even hired ethical hackers to test the app and tell us where we went wrong during the development.

We also have an automatic monitoring system which monitors the frequency of transactions, and once it crosses a threshold according to local and international financial security standards, the app would flag the bank.”

The app is not limited to cash transfers, said Republic Bank general manager of electronic channels and payment systems, Denyse Ramnarine. The app has a social media platform that also allows customers, merchants and users in general to communicate with each other while on the platform.

“You can post pictures of what you are buying, share messages or follow our news feed for new products and services. So it does not just allow for transactions, it is for messaging, sharing and communicating.”

This way people could contact each other, request transfers, send a QR code, much like social media platforms like WhatsApp so people could scan the code and transfer funds, or make reviews of merchants’ service and the service of the app itself.

Merchants can use the platform to communicate directly with customers, Republic Bank said. They can post promotions, share updates, display products and peruse reviews of their products.

Thanks to a map on the app, merchants can also use the platform to share their locations.

The merchants would also have access to settlement functionality where their Endcash funds could be sent directly to their bank account through an ACH payment, which means that funds can go from a merchant’s app to the bank wirelessly in a matter of 24 hours.

For consumers, the system is the same. Ramnarine said people could transfer their funds from the app to the bank at any time. The app can transfer funds to any bank, not just Republic, Ramnarine said.

Tom Yew said Republic has always been focused on customer trends, and Endcash gave the bank an opportunity to provide customers with another means to digitally transfer funds. She added that the app would help with the already emerging cashless ecosystem. Also with covid19 continuing to change the way people do business and interact with each other, the bank was also driven to find a way for consumers to conduct their business in a contactless way.

“The mobile wallet offers some key differences in the types of consumer it targets, by offering unique capabilities that other payment methods do not have," she said.

“We are in an era of mobile affinity. Especially with our GenYs and GenZs where we can leave home without our wallets but not without our smart phones. As such we can derive how mobile wallet adoption would accelerate based on this developing trend as it eliminates the need to carry around a wallet with multiple cards.”