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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple is in talks with U.S. banks over a potential person-to-person mobile payments service, reports The Wall Street Journal. Such a service would perhaps be positioned as an expansion to Apple Pay, and it would allow people to send each other payments, much like PayPal's Venmo or Square's Square Cash service.

apple-pay-800x500.jpg

Little is known about the talks at this early date, but The Wall Street Journal says communication between Apple and the banks is ongoing and it's not known if Apple has inked any concrete deals. Apple is said to be speaking to Chase, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank, but key details "remain in flux" and the technical details still need to be worked out.
It isn't clear how Apple intends to make money from the service. Indeed, the company may view a person-to-person offering mostly as a way to get more consumers to convert to its phones.

Under the current discussions, Apple wouldn't charge the banks for participating in its person-to-person payment service, said the person familiar with the talks. That is different from Apple Pay in which the banks pay Apple for each transaction
Person-to-person services like Venmo and Square Cash are used for personal payments and are useful for things like paying back a friend who bought dinner or splitting a rent payment. With Apple's system, iPhone and iPad owners could perhaps use Apple Pay to send secure payments to one another from a checking account.

A launch date for the service is unclear as of yet, but Apple may be targeting a 2016 debut.

Article Link: Apple Working on Mobile Person-to-Person Payment Service
 

Ries

macrumors 68020
Apr 21, 2007
2,313
2,827
This was always the obvious next step. Square is in trouble.

Don't know about Square, but I already have this from banks on my iPhone, for free, it is widely used in my country. If they had access to the NFC chip, I would have NFC payments too, but no, apple needs it cut.
 
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kiranmk2

macrumors 65832
Oct 4, 2008
1,503
1,902
Would be interesting to know how Apple and the banks plan to make any money from this. Credit card payments have a few % fee built into the price, but giving someone £10 in cash or via bank transfer is free - can't see many people paying to make it a bit easier (in the UK at least)
 

xero9

macrumors 6502a
Nov 7, 2006
863
486
Would be interesting to know how Apple and the banks plan to make any money from this. Credit card payments have a few % fee built into the price, but giving someone £10 in cash or via bank transfer is free - can't see many people paying to make it a bit easier (in the UK at least)

Maybe it will be debit only.. Kind of like taking cash out of the machine.
 
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2457282

Suspended
Dec 6, 2012
3,327
3,015
Currently my exclusive use of Paypal is to send my daughter money to help her out. If I could do this through another means it would be better. Paypal take several days to deposit the money into her account. If apple does this in a way that the deposit would be quicker, it would eliminate my need to Paypal altogether.
 

rcooked

macrumors regular
Feb 3, 2015
206
370
Yes, timing of this release with square going public is odd.

I'm wondering if an aquisition of Square would make more sense. It's a completely different animal than ApplePay.
 
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DipDog3

macrumors 65816
Sep 20, 2002
1,191
812
Maybe they would use an intermediary form of cash, like Apple Cash, which would just sit on the phone & could be used with Apple Pay at any store
 
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macnewbie91

macrumors 6502
Jul 24, 2015
322
193
I think it's great that Apple dropped Paypal credit from their accepted payment methods, for what it looks like to come up with their own service.

Paypal is outdated.

-They don't have chipped cards.
-They take a slice of the pie for each transaction.
-They charge high interest rates.
-They take 3-5 days to simply transfer money from one bank to the other.

I didn't realize it was 1993 still.
 

Glassed Silver

macrumors 68020
Mar 10, 2007
2,096
2,567
Kassel, Germany
You're right...it's so hard to find other people with iOS devices.
I'm not paying someone because they have an iOS device, I'm paying someone because I owe them money.

If this is a hit and miss scenario (works with some, with others not) I'll be tempted to just use whatever works with whoever I see, mostly that's cash or maybe even Paypal - device-agnostic. (desktop browser works too if all else fails)

Glassed Silver:mac
 
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