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Apple Is In Talks To Launch Its Own Venmo (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the if-you-can't-beat-em-join-em dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: The company has recently held discussions with payments industry partners about introducing its own Venmo competitor, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The service would allow iPhone owners to send money digitally to other iPhone owners, these people said. One source familiar with the plans told Recode they expect the company to announce the new service later this year. Another cautioned that an announcement and launch date may not yet be set. The new Apple product would compete with offerings from big U.S. banks as well as PayPal, its millennial-popular subsidiary Venmo, as well as Square Cash in the increasingly competitive world of digital money-transfers. Apple has also recently held discussions with Visa about creating its own pre-paid cards that would run on the Visa debit network and which would be tied to the new peer-to-peer service, sources told Recode. People would be able to use the Apple cards to spend money sent to them through the new service, without having to wait for it to clear to their bank account.

29 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. What's a 'Venmo'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What's a 'Venmo'?

    No, I won't google for it. I won't read the article, either. The summary should explain what a 'Venmo' is.

  2. Re:Another clone to fail by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Hell, I"m glad they described WTF "Venmo" was...

    I'd never heard of it before.

    *sigh*

    I guess I'd better hike my pants up and start shoo'ing kids away from my lawn...

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  3. "Venmo" defined for the lazy by netsavior · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Venmo is some stupid "payments wallet for your mobile phone" kind of thing, you have probably never heard of it, and they probably paid for this story in an attempt to make themselves more relevant.

    1. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by BeauHD · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the report: "Venmo registered $17.6 billion in volume and is still doubling year over year..." Sure, they're not omnipresent, but they're certainly one of the most influential peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platforms, especially among millennials.

      And no, they did not pay us to post this story, nor did they sponsor this comment.

    2. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      This ONE WEIRD TRICK will transfer your money to a stranger's debit card...

    3. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by radarskiy · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Venmo is like PayPal but not crooked.

    4. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by CrashNBrn · · Score: 3, Informative

      Considering Venmo is owned by Paypal...it's at least bent.

    5. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by sexconker · · Score: 1

      From the report: "Venmo registered $17.6 billion in volume and is still doubling year over year..." Sure, they're not omnipresent, but they're certainly one of the most influential peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platforms, especially among millennials.

        And no, they did not pay us to post this story, nor did they sponsor this comment.

      How are they one of the most influential person-to-person (that's what P2P stands for in this segment, not peer-to-peer) payment platform? XX billion per year? That's basically nothing compared to any major bank's P2P system, which nearly everyone already has access to, for free, including sending to other banks. All you need is the recipient's email address.

    6. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by FFOMelchior · · Score: 1

      I was a naysayer as well, but it's actually incredibly useful in real life. Going out with friends and need to split the bill? Have one person put it on their card and everyone else VenMo them. Much easier to than cash (3 people owe $11, who has change?), no IOUs needed. Someone I don't see often just brought tickets for me? VenMo them now so they're not in the hole for the time being. Wait, did I Bill back for when he spotted me parking 2 weeks ago? If I paid cash, I have no idea with my lousy memory. If only I had paid VenMo, then I'd know for sure. Etc etc.

    7. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by Berkyjay · · Score: 1

      Except who has bitcoins?

    8. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by Brandydy · · Score: 1

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    9. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by Glarimore · · Score: 2

      Venmo offers flexibility not offered by traditional banks (at least US ones, anyway).

      With Venmo, I can ask someone their user name and pay them back for half a meal or six pack within 30 seconds. No bank platform allows for that convenience.

      All of my friends and I use Venmo frequently. In addition to scenarios mentioned above, I also use it to pay my portion of utilities and rent to my roommate as well. I'm a late-twenty-something for reference.

    10. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by netsavior · · Score: 1

      I am 36, I would say that I am just an old person, but even including the bad old days of cash I have never in my life been in any of the situations people have listed as great examples of using Venmo.

    11. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by hackel · · Score: 1

      Not as easy as in any other civilised country, where they simply bring the card reader to each individual and charge your card for what you purchased.

    12. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by hackel · · Score: 1

      I'm not defending this Venmo thing, but...you've never split the cost of a meal with anyone? Really? That's not normal at any age.

    13. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by netsavior · · Score: 1

      I guess I live in an area where split checks is the norm. There is no way that culturally people I hang out with would accept the whole "I had a steak and 6 beers, you had a salad and water, so lets go halves on dinner." thing.

      I have never "split" a check outside of separate receipts, and I have never even witnessed it being done, except on humorous sketches about heavily imbalanced checks being split like the above scenario.

      buying tickets and stuff too. Nobody I work/live/hang out with would ever presume to spend someone else's money. That's really weird.

    14. Re:"Venmo" defined for the lazy by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Venmo offers flexibility not offered by traditional banks (at least US ones, anyway).

      With Venmo, I can ask someone their user name and pay them back for half a meal or six pack within 30 seconds. No bank platform allows for that convenience.

      All of my friends and I use Venmo frequently. In addition to scenarios mentioned above, I also use it to pay my portion of utilities and rent to my roommate as well. I'm a late-twenty-something for reference.

      WTF do you mean no bank platform offers that convenience?
      I can literally send money to an email address in a few clicks and be done with it. The only thing the recipient needs to do is a one-time confirmation with their bank that they own that email address. Every major bank in the US is supported. Everything after that one-time confirmation is automatic. Venmo is much more of a hassle.

  4. Re:Apple looking at Venmo offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nope, it will be built into iTunes, which currently doesn't have enough functionality shoehorned into it.

  5. Cue dramatic music by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    without having to wait for it to clear to their bank account

    Don't worry, the debt collectors and call centers assigned to harass you already have your iphone number.

    This is only the beginning

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  6. Re:Another clone to fail by brewthatistrue · · Score: 1

    I looked it up the other day.

    As best as I can tell, it's succeeding because
    1) it's more single focused than its competitors - it's about peer payments more than grocery store/etc payments.
    2) it's got financial backing of Paypal (owner)
    3) it's social (not sure why this is an appeal, but articles seem to claim it is)
    4) it's built a network affect with millenials already (not sure how. awesome marketing at "welcome to college get your credit cards here" day?)

    Google Wallet/etc. are android, and Apple pay is android, but what's cross platform? Venmo apparently. For now.

    Most of this is pieced together/speculated after reading a couple articles and searching reddit for mentions of venmo alongside google wallet.

  7. Re:Another clone to fail by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    With the weird capitalization, I read the headline as "Apple One's in talks to launch its own Venmo". Imagine my disappointment to find out this has nothing to do with the original Apple computer.

  8. America's Banking System Sucks by SumDog · · Score: 1

    We don't need more of this proprietary payment garbage. We need person-to-person transfers between banks that are fee free and run through the ACH system. EVERY OTHER COUNTRY with a modern banking system has this! America is still in the 1990s:

    http://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-is-still-in-the-1990s/

    1. Re:America's Banking System Sucks by mccalli · · Score: 2

      Ah, is this why all these things keep popping up? I keep thinking "but I can already do that and have been able to for years". Decades in fact (and at this point, for almost a decade on mobile as well).

      Genuine point of education for me if people don't mind please - can you not just use your own banking app, or a national standard similar to PAYM? Is it that people are charged for doing that in the US?

    2. Re:America's Banking System Sucks by hackel · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of any such national standard. I know some individual banks have their own money sharing services, but they aren't at all standardized—they've basically just contracted with any of these other 3rd party services. My credit union only recently added the ability to add an external account to do ACH transfers to/from, but it has to be an account you own, or at least verified by small deposits into the account. (A ridiculously bad security measure in the first place.)

      The U.S. banking system is indeed a joke. We can't even get chip and pin right.

  9. Re:Another clone to fail by Berkyjay · · Score: 1

    It's the simplest and easiest way to send money to someone with no surcharge which is why it is popular. Plus, you can turn off the social part of it which surprisingly most people don't do.

  10. Re:But, why? by Berkyjay · · Score: 1

    Most people aren't as paranoid about their money. Even less have bitcoins.

  11. Re:Millennial-popular? by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 1

    Millennials don't have any money, unless it's from their student loads for their useless liberal arts degree.

    Lol you're a caricature of a curmudgeonly grandfather from 1968.

  12. What the hell is Venmo? by hackel · · Score: 1

    It sounds more like a Google Wallet / Paypal competitor. What's the point of comparing it to some random product no one's ever heard of?

    1. Re:What the hell is Venmo? by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

      Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean nobody's heard of it. It's a subsidiary of PayPal, so it's not small potatoes.