New payment option promising no transaction fees launched

If you're fed up paying ever-increasing high banking charges on your current account, a new option might be at hand. Payments processing company Realex has launched its first personal banking product, which allows customers to lodge and transfer money in real time and with no transaction fees for personal customers.

“Realex Fire” will be open to both business and personal customers, who can open an online account from which they can transfer funds from other bank accounts. Using email addresses or mobile numbers, users can expand the number of people they pay by inviting them to join their circle.

Other features of the product include the ability to link a Facebook profile to the account, which will allow you to receive private notifications of when you get paid or receive a payment request, and a mobile app, which will give you access to your funds anytime.

Realex Fire founder and chief executive Colm Lyon says the company wants to "fundamentally transform the payments landscape and make payments safer, more accessible, social and less expensive to process".

Realex sees the product as “ the base upon which we will build the payment applications of the future”.

Realex was set up over 10 years ago by entrepreneur Lyon, and it already processes payments of over € 20 billion a year for over 12,000 online retailers including Aer Lingus, Paddy Power, Vodafone and Virgin Atlantic. It has a workforce of 160 people in offices in Dublin, London and Paris and is regulated by the Central Bank.