A new payments app being set up by the banks here to rival disruptors such as Revolut will be called Yippay, the Irish Independent has learned.

The app is being developed by a new company called Synch Payments that’s owned by Bank of Ireland, AIB, Permanent TSB and KBC Ireland and is headed by Inez Cooper.

The Electronic Money Association, which includes companies such as Stripe, Paypal, Facebook and Revolut, is opposed to the plan.

Last month, Synch Payments applied to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) for permission to operate the joint venture “for the purpose of implementing a new industry-wide mobile payment system service”.

It followed the rejection in January of an initial application by Synch Payments after it failed to provide the competition watchdog with sufficient information regarding the planned venture.

The new app is being coordinated by the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland. Italian firm FinTech has been selected to provide the technology behind the service.

The four banks have injected almost €6m in capital into Synch Payments. However, KBC Ireland is now preparing to exit the Irish market.

Synch Payments has already registered the Yippay.com and Yippay.ie websites.

The Yippay name has also been registered as a trademark with the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland by Synch Payments. A Twitter account called Yippay_ie was registered in February this year.

“Synch Payments DAC, a new joint venture company, will create a new industry wide open payment service in the State that can be used, subject to the joint venture licensing terms, by all financial institutions (including consortia of smaller financial institutions) that issue Euro-denominated IBANs to Irish customers,” a statement on the CCPC website notes.

The competition watchdog is currently undertaking a phase one preliminary investigation into the planned venture.

The Yippay app is being developed to counter the major competitive threat faced by the traditional banks from digital operators such as Revolut and N26 which have built significant customer bases using slick apps.

UK firm Revolut has about 1.2 million users in Ireland, while Germany’s N26 has about 200,000.

The Electronic Money Association has told the competition watchdog that the payment service planned by these banks behind Yippay might increase their market share and their dominance of the Irish banking market.