The WTAMU Bateman team, a Public Relations campaign team, is promoting the product Popmoney in the West Texas Panhandle throughout the month of February.

The Bateman team is part of the WT chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). Each year, PRSSA partners with a different organization, and this year they are partnered with Fiserv, a global provider of financial services technology.

Fiserv developed Popmoney, a person-to-person (P2P) payment service that enables individuals to send and receive payments electronically in a manner that is designed to displace traditional check payments.

“The name originates from Pay Other People plus Money,” Abbey Coufal, senior Mass Communication major, said.

Popmoney differs from other P2P payment services in the manner in which transactions take place.

“Popmoney transactions execute from the sender’s checking account to the receiver’s checking account directly. There is no requirement for a stored value account for either participant,” Coufal said.

Popmoney can be used through the website, www.popmoney.com, or by downloading the app for free onto your smart phone. When using the app, you can import contacts from your phone, select the amount and who to send it to and leave a personalized message when the money delivers.

Money is sent from the sender’s bank account directly to the receiver’s bank account, with no middle account that you have to transfer money in and out of.

“Popmoney makes it easy to split checks at dinner or when students go out. It seems like no one ever has enough cash, and ATMs charge to withdraw if it isn’t your bank,” Kaitlyn Jones, junior Mass Communication major, said. “WT students could also pay rent, utilities or other shared living expenses.”

Popmoney can also be beneficial to parents.

“For example, the student has suddenly run out of money. The parents can send the money to their student quickly using Popmoney,” Coufal said.

In the fall of 2013, Popmoney won the Innovation in Mobile Value-Added Services award at the Mobile Money Global Awards held during the Mobile Money and Digital Payments Summit in Dubai. The award recognizes the company that has been most innovative in developing new services and finding new ways to deliver them via the mobile channel.

“It is essentially the future of money transfer,” Matt Villegas, junior Mass Communication major, said.

The Bateman team is promoting Popmoney throughout the month of February as part of their competition. The team has been preparing for the Popmoney campaign since August.

“Members of our team did lots of research throughout last semester, and throughout winter break, we had to meet and plan out what we were going to be doing this month,” Jones said.

A campaign book including a case study of the implementation of the campaign in February must be completed and submitted to judges in March. The WT Bateman team is competing in a national campaign against 120 schools.

Last year, the Bateman team competed for the first time in WT history.

“We are really excited to be the second team to compete in the school’s history,” Coufal said.

The members of this year’s Bateman team are Coufal, Jones, Villegas and Cambry Cooper, a junior Mass Communication major. The team is advised by Kim Bruce, assistant professor of Mass Communication

To keep up with the Bateman team and their promotion of Popmoney, visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/WTBateman.