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About us

What is Phinger?

It is a unified mobile payment app that aims to turn smartphones into a secure, convenient, and fast payment method by making it a third payment option in Jordan and the MENA region instead of cash or credit card payment methods. Additionally, to comply with the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) future vision of turning the economy into a cashless economy.

The Problem That We Are Addressing

Smartphones have become the most important technology device in the world. They’re now used for calling, texting, socializing, gaming, meditation, and much more. In Jordan alone, +8 million smartphones are in use, and in the MENA region +300 million are in use, and these numbers continue to increase. Despite this rapid growth in use and functionality, most smartphones in the region don’t have payment capabilities yet.

There are approximately $36 billion of personal expenditures in Jordan every year on products and services, where the MENA region is at about $1.8 trillion. 90% of these expenditures are made through traditional payment methods like cash and credit cards. This translates to a payment market size in revenue terms of $3.2 billion in Jordan alone, consisting of (A) credit card transaction fees that merchants pay between 2-3% per transaction and a wait time that these merchants bear between 2-3 days for their money to be cleared and settled in their bank by the credit card processor, (B) the 1 JD that users bear to withdraw cash from any ATM in Jordan other than their bank’s.

Our Solution

A mobile application that turns any active smartphone in Jordan into a secure and convenient payment method, and as fast as taking a photo through the QR code merchant-presented mode established by the EMVCo standard.

Phinger was built to make an API integration with Madfooatcom, a real-time bill presentment and payment system (EBPPS) in Jordan, that uses RTGS (Real Time Gross and Settlement System) to enable real-time settlements that can be configured to handle multiple sessions per day.

Reasons for such integration are numerous. Firstly and foremost, the top-notch reputation that Madfooatcom has since it is already licensed by the CBJ, which will allow us to integrate with them without fulfilling the CBJ capital requirements and other licensing requirements. Secondly, the faster payout that it will offer to our merchants in less than 24 hours; due to the multiple sessions per day that Madfoaatcom conducts to settle funds between banks. Thirdly, its connectivity to the majority (+92%) of the banking institutions in Jordan within its network.

Additionally from our side, this will allow us to charge the merchant a competitive rate per transaction that is lower than anyone else in the market, where Madfooatcom will share a percentage of that rate with full control over the settlement process.

Our Features

Our unified solution has multiple features for all needs and all users, including:

  • Payment Method Management Insert multiple bank accounts and/or credit/debit card accounts in one place.
  • Primary and Sub-Accounts Option Create multiple sub-accounts under your active primary account for your spouse, children, or other beneficiaries to allow them to share your account with certain amount limits set by you, and to make them financially included.
  • Latest Transactions and History Log Check your latest transaction or the history log of previous transactions in a digital receipt format.
  • Payment Data Analytics Tool Analyze your spending habits seamlessly, get familiar with where do you spend your money often, and improve your liquidity with an option that will allow you to refine your payments based on predetermined bill tiers or payment categories (i.e. groceries, pharmaceuticals, etc.). This feature will also be available at the merchant platform module.
  • Referral Program Refer the phinger mobile app to a certain number of individuals to qualify for a one-time attractive discount on your next payment anywhere.

Our Uniqueness and Competitive Advantages

We cannot stress enough our obvious uniqueness and advantages among other local and regional competitors. Given our partnership with Madfooatcom, we will be able to:

  • Offer a competitive and low rate per transaction paid by the merchant
  • Faster merchant payout in less than 24 hours
  • Support to all smartphone devices and individuals with different bank accounts, whereas other mobile payment providers, like banks, have set up mobile payments exclusively for their customers.
  • Payment data analytics tool that will be hugely beneficial to merchants in financial and strategic decision making, better control and management over their inventory, and improve their cash flow liquidity by analyzing how much their consumers are willing to pay on their products or services.

How Does it Work?

Let us simplify and demonstrate the user journey to you by introducing our friend Sameer.

One day Sameer was setting in his coach checking his Instagram account by spamming his friends’ stories. Swipe after swipe, an ad showed up introducing him to Phinger and requesting him to swipe up to download the app. So Sameer, as a curious user, downloaded the app. Then he sets up his personal info (name and phone number) and his preferred payment method (bank account or credit card). After 3 minutes, magically, the app was ready to use.

Sameer the other day, went to Abu Mohammad Minimarket, a local minimarket available in his neighborhood that is registered with Phinger; to buy some snacks worth 10 JDs. He requested from Abu Mohammad, the owner, that he wants to pay with phinger. So Abu Mohammad inserted the amount on his smartphone/tablet and a QR code with the amount has been generated for Sameer to scan. On the other side, Sameer pulled his iPhone 8 out of his pocket, opened the app, selected his Bank of Jordan account as his payment method for this transaction and his camera opened and captured the merchant-presented QR code instantaneously. A payment confirmation appeared on Sameer’s iPhone to confirm the payment, where he then scanned his fingerprint to complete the payment. Finally, a digital receipt appeared for both as proof of payment.

All of this took about 8 seconds from start to end.

In the backend, Madfooatcom has already processed and approved this transaction by settling and clearing the funds between Sameer’s bank and Abu Mohammad’s bank. Subsequently, when Abu Mohammad was checking his bank account the other day, he found out that the 10 JDs (after deducting the fee) was already deposited into his account.