Once considered a fad, a money transfer application has evolved into a routine solution for any consumer of digital services. Charging less for even faster payment processing, digital money transfer applications supersede traditional remittance methods with 4.96% to 6.94% average cost globally. For cross-border transactions, such mobile solutions make the most sense, allowing to make a $200 transaction cheaper by over 44% compared to the other methods. Those are wire transfers and cash payouts that can no longer keep up with the changing financial landscape and technology advancements.

Current Landscape of Money Transfer App Development

According to a Coherent’s research, the money transfer app development market will grow considerably by 2031, hitting the US$ 65.38 bn mark. That will be definitely impacted by many beneficial factors and tech trends like:

• Immense spread of smartphones with high performance
• Unprecedented speed of mobile internet connection
• Thriving cross-border e-commerce
• Mainstream digital wallets
• In-built personalized loyalty programs
• Varied types of real-time transfers
• Blockchain integration and mushrooming cryptocurrencies
• AI advancements and advanced data analysis
• Enhanced security, biometric authentication, and data encryption methods.

The adoption of money transfer apps goes beyond the realm of banks, financial organizations, credit unions, and FinTech companies. Payment wallets or integrated payment systems are also common for many online marketplaces (e.g., eBay, Etsy Payments, Alibaba, Amazon, etc. ), large e-commerce and retail chains (e.g., Walmart, Kroger, Target Wallet, etc.), travel, transportation, and logistics companies (e.g., Airbnb, Lufthansa, Uber, Booking.com, DHL, FedEx, etc.). Such apps are also relevant for energy and utilities, healthcare, online learning platforms, real estate companies.

Why so? Having a proprietary money transfer app or payment system adds up to seamless customer experience and meets the demand for instant payments. It opens up new monetization opportunities and brings a system tailored to specific business goals and requirements.

Among the largest market players according to Research and Markets are PayPal, Western Union, Wise, Remitely, WorldRemit, Revolut, etc. They will be among those who witness the above 15% rise of the global money transfer app market in a four-year period.

2. Key Features and Building Blocks of A Money Transfer Application

So why with all those proven third-party providers, many companies still opt for their branded money transfer apps? Not only does it allow avoiding recurring payment gateway fees, but also lets cover a range of different transactions—peer-to-peer (P2P), business-to-business (B2B), and international transactions. Along with staunch security and additional customer engagement opportunities—cashbacks, rewards, and other loyalty programs empowered by AI customer behavior analysis.

All these and other features make a money transfer application a powerful tool to cater to your customers’ needs and keep their loyalty at high ranks.

So, how do you create a money transfer app and choose its most effective features? From the outset, you should factor in the purpose of payments, the type of transactions, who your users are (consumers or businesses), what will be the app transaction fees, limits, and speed. This detailed checklist may lend a hand:

Overview of Key Money Transfer Application Features

The diversity of web and mobile payment apps brings up even more features designed to telly with the current technological trends, regulations, and soaring customer expectations. Let’s name a few that your users may fancy:

• Payment status tracking
• Integrated multi-currency e-wallets
• Real-time currency conversion
• Personal finance and budgeting
• Utilities payments, settling bills
• Recurring transactions for monthly payments
• Real-time notifications
• Support of multiple languages
• Ability to create and send invoices
• Support 24/7 with AI-powered chatbots
• Personalized loyalty programs

3. The Technology behind Money Transfer Apps

The choice of technology stack will depend on a bunch of factors, including features that we have mentioned earlier. Your development team will need to know:

• Target audience (businesses, local or global users)
• Users’ money transfer needs
• Your goals, KPIs
• Monetization preferences
• Requirements (functional, non-functional, user experience)
• Budget and time constraints.

Let’s imagine that you aim at a custom hybrid mobile application for peer-to-peer domestic and cross-border transactions. For users, it should be a robust and easy-to-navigate application compatible with both ioS and Android smartphones where they can make purchases in their country and abroad, also being able to send and receive international remittances.

On your end, you might think of a robust, highly scalable tech stack that relies on SSL/TLS protocols to encrypt transmitted data for international transactions. Here’s an example of some essential frameworks and tools we recommend in the first place:

For the back-end, opt for some of these frameworks depending on your requirements, customer base, and required integrations.

Node.js has non-blocking I/O and asynchronous architecture that suits best for high-performing apps, handling multiple transactions, managing concurrent requests, providing real-time notifications, and integration with APIs for currency conversion, payment gateways, etc.

Java couples ideally with RESTful APIs and makes peer-to-peer transactions simple and rapid. However, if you need to manage both local and global transactions, then Java’s Spring Boot framework is the one to provide a single API for diverse transaction and persistence APIs. Also, Java brings up native functionality for biometric authentication in Android apps.

Python could be complementary to develop robust APIs, implement fraud detection analysis, and build AI/ML models for advanced features like currency exchange prediction, transfer fee calculation, etc.

PHP will be a reasonable option for a lightweight system and integration of payment gateways.

Go relies on microservices architecture that facilitates real-time cross-border transfers on a larger scale.

For the front-end, we recommend using Flutter or ReactNative together with Kotlin or Swift allowing an app to function across different platforms and offer close-to-native performance.

For data storage, the most common options would be MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB.

For real-time data processing, our team would suggest RabbitMQ or ApacheKafka.

As to cloud hosting, databases and warehouses, our Svitla team can consult you on AWS or Azure cloud services that should be also aligned with your current or preferred cloud infrastructure.

By the way, both AWS and Azure provide out-of-the-box solutions and pre-built APIs for  authentication (Amazon Cognito vs. Azure Active Directory B2C), currency exchange (Azure Data Exchange vs. Azure Marketplace), real-time updates (Amazon AppSync, SNS, SQS vs. Azure SignalR, Event Grid), notifications (Amazon SNS vs. Azure Notifications Hubs ), payment gateways (AWS Marketplace vs. Azure Marketplace integrations with third-party APIs like Stripe, PayPal), and compliance (Amazon Macie, Amazon Config, AWS Artifact vs. Azure Policy, Security Center).  

4. Essential Elements of a Money Transfer App Monetization Strategy

At this point, you may question whether you need a dedicated money transfer app regarding the complex tech stack, preparation, and incurred expenses.

It’s key to formulate a monetization strategy while outlining features at the requirements and design stage. First, select monetization methods tailored to your users. For example, with users interested in basic features, you can apply transaction fees and foreign exchange margins. However, your premium users most likely would consider subscription plans and some exclusive features. If you’re into businesses, then prioritize partnership and collaboration programs.

Now, let’s view some of the most efficient app monetization approaches:

Transaction Fee

Transparent but competitive fees per each transaction will give you a regular revenue stream. Setting the amount of fees, always consider the size, speed and destination of a transaction whether it's domestic or international application.

Subscription Plan

Factor in some premium features that your application would provide to high-value users, becoming a predictable source of profit. These can be premium monthly, 6-month, or annual membership plans with lower or no transaction fees, higher limits, and faster speeds. Additionally, to expand your audience, introduce such compelling and advanced features as:

• A free X-day trial
• Multi-currency support
• AI-powered personal finance analytics and reporting
• Scheduling of recurring transactions
• Prioritized 24/7 user support or personal support manager
• Loyalty programs (cashback, bonuses, discounts, etc.)

Partnerships and Shared Revenue

This one may take time and a lot of networking effort to connect with specific banks, financial institutions, and payment networks like Wise or PayPal. However, in the long run, having revenue-sharing agreements with some of them, you’ll get your percentage from each transaction on your partner’s side. Besides that, you can earn by promoting insurance or loans from your partner banks.

A good example is Svitla Systems’ recent collaborative FinTech solution connecting financial organizations and banks for shared revenue opportunities.

Cross-selling Financial Services

If you already have collaborated with a financial service provider, add some extra products from them like receiving microloans or even loans, making an investment, opening a savings account, or offering smart insurance solutions via your app.

Targeted Advertisements and Affiliated Products

Be careful with that, setting aside disruptive advertisements and instead using recommendations on some investment platforms or financial tools of your partners, etc.

Conclusion

The money app transfer market is booming with all the available options and providers. Though developing your proprietary application incurs good investment, it’s one of the most obvious ways to grow your customer base, scale up your business, and discover new partnerships. Yet you’ll need enough expertise to cover all the stages of the application development and complex technology stack.

Our Svitla team will be happy to consult you on a bundle of relevant solutions and custom finance software development services we provide.