The PayBox App - Making Mobile Payments Viral Qorus Banking Innovation Awards 2019

In 2018, two bank-owned mobile payment apps (mostly for P2P transfers) led the Israeli market: Bit (by Bank Hapoalim) and Pepper-Pay (by Bank Leumi)- both heavily investing in marketing to gain users. At this time, Discount Bank acquired the PayBox app- a small group-based social payments startup. The bank realized the unique potential in mobile-based group payments, in the context of a constantly evolving payment landscape. PayBox's rapid growth is genuine organic growth, "grass roots" from the bottom-up - via the high engagement levels of group users. PayBox is ideal for many group and social payment occasions - collecting cash for a school-class initiative, collecting donations for a local family in need, friends planning a bachelors' party, and even event organizers selling tickets via PayBox. The app quickly turned into a real "engine" behind the regular activity of many different social groups within Israel. With nearly zero investment in marketing, leveraging WOM alone, the app turned almost overnight into a viral success story. Since launch, the free PayBox app was downloaded over 1.6 Million times (Israel's population is approx. 9 Million). The app enjoys hundreds of thousands of active monthly users, and has a current ranking of 4.8 (out of 5 stars) in the app stores. PayBox's rapid viral growth (from 120K users to 1.6 million users in just 2.5 years), with almost no advertising, is its biggest success. Un-surprisingly, the app's market share is especially high in the group segment, while processing dozens of millions of Shekels each month.