It’s all about the “sharing economy” these days. Think Uber, Airbnb and JustPark. Sharing is starting to become a ‘thing’ in the finance sector too; TransferWise is a good example in this respect. I recently came across WeSwap, which is a peer-to-peer travel money exchange service founded two years ago. I decided to review the WeSwap app and these are some of my findings:

1. How did the app come to my attention? – I recently read an article in the Financial Times, titled “Travel money venture cashes in peer-to-peer cash.” WeSwap got quite a lot of coverage in the article and that’s how I found out about it.
2. My quick summary of the app (before using it)? – Similar to the model behind TransferWise, I believe WeSwap helps people to exchange currencies without having to pay hefty bank fees.
3. How does the app explain itself in the firs minute? – Before entering the actual WeSwap app, I see a screen which states “WeSwap helps you save on your travel money.” This is followed by the explanation “by swapping your money with other travelers, travelling in the opposite direction (see Fig. 1 below).”
4. Getting started, what’s the process like (1)? – Despite the app being a bit slow to load, the account creation process felt very intuitive, clean and nicely laid out (see Fig. 2 below). I did feel a little bit of confused as I thought account creation was going to be a 1-step process (see Fig. 3 below). However, after I’d submitted my email and and password, I got a screen which showed a 3-step account creation progress bar at the top (see Fig. 4 below). I then had to give up on the the account creation process, as I was doing this on the go and didn’t have personal ID files that I could upload, nor was I fully clear on why this was necessary to create an account (see Fig. 5 below).
5. Getting started, what’s the process like (2)? – From the screenshots that I’ve looked at (see Fig. 5), the WeSwap interfaces and interactions feel very clear and intuitive. What I couldn’t test, however, was how self-explanatory the “swaps” and “loads” are. I believe that the ability to explain the currency ‘swaps’ to casual users will be critical to the success and adoption of WeSwap.
6. How does the app compare to similar apps? – Currencyfair and Kantox offer a service similar to WeSwap. However, they don’t seem to have a mobile app. Transferwise, another WeSwap competitor, do offer a mobile app. The TransferwWise app feels very accessible, and is focused on being easy to use.
7. Did the app deliver on my expectations? – I feel I can’t really answer this question, having given up during the account creation process. The way the app presents itself in the first few screens feels very intuitive and simple, but I hadn’t expected the sign-up process to feel as onerous as it did. That could just be me and not the app, but it did stop me from using the app on the go.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of WeSwap opening screen (when using the app for the first time)

Fig. 2 – Screenshot of account creation process in WeSwap 

Fig. 3 – Screenshot of account creation process in WeSwap – Step 1 

Fig. 4 – Screenshot of account creation process in WeSwap – Step 2

Fig. 4 – Screenshot of account creation process in WeSwap – Step 3

Fig. 5 – WeSwap screenshots – Taken from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weswap.app