National Australia Bank has launched a mobile payment service that lets users send, receive and request payments via NFC, QR codes, a mobile phone number, an email address or Facebook.

Customers can use the service by downloading the Nab Flik app and completing a registration process where they link their bank account to the app. They can then launch the app, choose whether they wish to send or request a payment, enter the amount they wish to send or receive and, at the bottom of the screen, choose from three options: Contacts, QR code or Tap.

If they select Contacts, the app accesses the user's contacts list. Customers then select a contact and choose whether to use the recipient's mobile phone number, email address or Facebook account to identify the person to send the payment to.

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If the recipient has already registered for NAB Flik and provided those identifying details, the bank matches them with the recipient's bank account and funds are then sent between the accounts as a standard internet banking funds transfer. If they have not registered, they simply enter their bank account details in order to receive the payment.

For in-person transfers via QR, the sender's smartphone generates a QR code that can then be scanned by the recipient's smartphone. If both users have an NFC phone, the sender can select the Tap option to transfer the money via NFC.

A video produced by the bank shows the service in action:

"We wanted to get the best user experience before we released this app, so we ran a robust internal trial to help guide development before we offered it to our customers," says Antony Cahill, NAB's executive general manager of digital and direct banking.

"One of the features that we enhanced as part of the internal trial was the ability for customers to send and action payment requests from different people using multiple payment methods. NAB Flik can handle up to 10 of these at one time."