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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.

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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. 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
 
And if the other person doesn't have the same bank?

Barclays (the bank) have the Pingit app, neither person needs to have a Barclays account, the only requirement is a UK registered phone number. I guess if they can do it, Apple can make the system work for them, too.
 
You're right...it's so hard to find other people with iOS devices.
That's not the point. He's right that it would be DOA. Look at Venmo; It works between iOS, Android, Windows phones, etc. and is free to use without fees. There would be no advantage, or reason, to use Apple's iOS-only app when other solutions like Venmo are superior in every conceivable way.
 
I get frustrated watching from Japan while the rest of the word moves on in this space.

We are still stuck in the world of paper bank books used by all (and really the only way to keep track of your account), still predominantly cash economy, limited internet banking (with websites that look like they are visiting from 1995), and electronic money transfers mainly done from ATMs and costing 600 yen each.
 
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That's not the point. He's right that it would be DOA. Look at Venmo; It works between iOS, Android, Windows phones, etc. and is free to use without fees. There would be no advantage, or reason, to use Apple's iOS-only app when other solutions like Venmo are superior in every conceivable way.

Apple's advantage is that it'll likely cost them far less than the competitors. Square Cash at least manages instant transfers by running debit card transactions, which has to cost them a significant amount.
 
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.

Most services that do it for free make their money (a) on non-free commercial transactions, and (b) on the "float" (the interest they earn while holding large amounts in transit from many transactions).

The problem with that right now is the vanishingly low interest rates (said by some to be needed to keep the sky-high national debt from causing an immediate collapse, more than as an indication of low inflation) mean they have trouble making back their own costs plus the charges they have to pay to transfer to/from a bank account.

Bottom line is that both free and instant is unlikely (although MAYBE if they spammed you to death with ads, they could do it; but a website that does both transactions AND 3rd party ads would IMO be very hard to have sufficiently secure!). Notwithstanding what's happened to the music industry, giving away free services is NOT how the financial industry works.
 
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)
Probably debit only with the option to pay to use a credit card, or have a maximum amount you can use in a month without having to pay.
 
That's not the point. He's right that it would be DOA. Look at Venmo; It works between iOS, Android, Windows phones, etc. and is free to use without fees. There would be no advantage, or reason, to use Apple's iOS-only app when other solutions like Venmo are superior in every conceivable way.

Think of it like this.
I'm a techie dude, and before today- I'd NEVER heard of Venmo. I'll probably forget the name tomorrow.
So..... take a non techie, like my gran- doesn't do a lot of purchasing online; still hesitant to send all her credit card info into the "cloud". However, she DOES trust the largest tech company in the history of man that secures her data/money with her fingerprint!
If you wanted to try to get her and five of her friends to all download the app you're touting, sign up for it, register their cards, etc, etc. you'd be in for a MONUMENTAL undertaking.
If they could whip out their iPhones & with a thumb tap split the after church lunch bill, you may have a winner!
If the best cross platform app won, we'd all be messaging on ICQ still.
Ease is trump.
 
Samsung is already working on phone to phone payments. They've got everyone beat on mobile payments. But good effort from Apple.
No, not at all:
Mobile payments go viral: M-PESA in Kenya

...Developed by Vodafone and launched commercially by the company’s Kenyan affiliate Safaricom, M-PESA is a small-value (all transactions are capped at $500) electronic payment and store of value system accessible from ordinary mobile phones. Once customers have an M-PESA account, they can use their phones to transfer funds to both M-PESA users and non-users, pay bills, and purchase mobile airtime credit for a small, flat, per-transaction fee...

...Since its introduction in mid-2007, M-PESA had been adopted by 9 million customers as of late 2009—40 percent of Kenya’s adult population—and is now facilitating an average of $320 million per month in person-to-person transfers (roughly 10 percent of Kenya’s GDP on an annualized basis). Extremely rapid uptake of M-PESA is a strong vote of confidence by local users in a new technology as well as an indication of significant latent demand for remittance services. In recent months, M-PESA has begun allowing institutional payments, enabling companies to pay salaries and collect bill payments...
 
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
I am actually thinking of the possibilites of buying something second hand. Safer and easier than bringing cash. If this doesn;t cost the buyer anything, I don't see how this is a bad thing. Use it when you can. Don't when you don't Asking the person I am buying from if they take Apple pay is far more conveneinct than automatically running to the ATM to pull out cash, for me.

You may not think this is a great idea. That fine. DOA? Doubt it. There are also other payment methods (such as square) that would continue kicking. If you ever go to conventions, people pay with square on ipads. It's almost ubiquitous. So if the next iPad has capaolities to utilize this, boom. For people with Android they still have square. The NFC method is simply safer and faster.
 
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BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) already has this. Currently it's available for Canadian BBM users and, if I'm not wrong, Indonesian users. It uses PayPal to transfer money between users.

I also make NFC payments with my BlackBerry Passport.

BBM is cross-platform and available for iOS. If it doesn't already have person-to-person money transfer it's coming soon.
 
Samsung is already working on phone to phone payments. They've got everyone beat on mobile payments. But good effort from Apple.

http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-pay-may-soon-support-phone-to-phone-payments-654143/

Lol, the ONLY way Samsung has even the slightest advantage over anyone else is their acquisition of Looppay, which gave them ability to take payments from backasswards little ma & pa joints that refuse to use nfc terminals... So I guess your definition of "beating everyone" is clinging to outdated tech??
 
I can transfer money to anyone in Canada with a mobile phone number now for free, if Apple can make the process more streamlined for the same price of free, then I'm all for a better process.
 
This is exciting. This would be a huge selling point to Apple Pay.

Nearly all of my family and entire office use iPhones so this would be great.
 
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.

Have your daughter open a checking account with the same financial institution where you keep your funds and have your name added onto her account. See that she's issued a debit card. When you need to send her money call your financial institution and transfer the money from the account with the funds into her account. She'll have instant access to those funds via the debit card.
 
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Cash Apple works just fine and the funds are available immediately pretty much..This is the next step though
 
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.

Except that Venmo (owned by Paypal) is real time P2P money transfer. Doesn't cost anything and is free unless credit cards are used to fund (free with debit/ACH). Apple is looking to compete with that. Paypal's business model is beyond P2P. So Apple is going to try and supplant Venmo, which works great, but Apple will likely make it not free.

Apple needs to innovate hardware and stop trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to music, payments, etc.
 
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