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Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service
- keehun 11y agoFull text link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QqQIwAGoVChMI9Oi--qOJyQIVhTYmCh25mg_s&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapple-in-talks-with-u-s-banks-to-develop-mobile-person-to-person-payment-service-1447274074&usg=AFQjCNHkVGQrLWpRVRZaXVj3eh0AyciByg&sig2=YJcI7YoHzE30KbihlpCHRw&bvm=bv.107406026,d.eWE https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- abc_lisper 11y agoI was thinking about this. Square, you are F*d!
- mtgx 11y agoIf it's "person to person", then why do the banks need to be involved? If they are involved, then it's more like "bank to bank", isn't it? > It also represents the latest attempt by banks and other providers to shift Americans away from cash and checks. The good news is that the police can't steal the cash on you anymore. The bad news is now all of your purchases will be tracked all the time.
- revscat 11y agoBecause access to the source and target accounts still needs to be coordinated, and the appropriate withdrawal/deposit handled. Although it is interesting to consider, we are not yet at the point where our devices hold "actual" money.
- LeoPanthera 11y agoArguably Bitcoin is there.
- ska 11y agoArguably, but it isn't a very good argument in 2015.
- guelo 11y agoWith all the available options why would you want to use a service that requires you to figure out if the other person uses an iPhone?
- feld 11y agoWho said it would be iPhone-only?
- finnn 11y agoEverything Apple has ever done historically (with mobile) has been iOS-only, what possible reason would there be to suspect this would be any different?
- Alupis 11y agoAnd given the number of Android devices in the wild far, far surpasses the number of iOS devices... using this service seems like more of a hassle than not.
- codyb 11y agoIn NYC, iPhone users seem pretty heavily concentrated in Manhattan. This means certain groups of people are probably hanging out in nearly entirely iPhone user enclaves. [0] [0] - http://www.businessinsider.com/android-is-for-poor-people-maps-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/android-is-for-poor-people-ma...
- jolipparcreek 11y agoThat article was very misleading[1] and I wonder why[2] people keep citing it… [1] here's a deconstruction of the data in the article: http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158143/twitter-heat-map-shows-iphone-use-by-the-affluent-android-by-the-poor/40#post_2349718 http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158143/twitter-heat-map-sho... [2] here's one explanation why: http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/why-do-americans-hate-android-and-love-apple http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/why-do-americans-hate-androi...
- roymurdock 11y agoLast bit of the title is "...Payment Service Like Venmo" Seems to be the latest push by Apple to integrate Apple Pay into some sort of payments ecosystem by force. Should be interesting to see if there is any compelling reason to use Apple's solution over Venmo which has a huge incumbency advantage at this point.
- feld 11y ago> huge incumbency I've never heard of Venmo, nor have any of my tech friends.
- archmikhail 11y agoYou probably don't live in the bay area.
- kingnothing 11y agoWhich means they don't have a huge incumbency.
- ethanbond 11y agoI'm at school in upstate NY. Venmo dominates here as well. It's doing pretty well, but honestly is an unimpressive product.
- roymurdock 11y agoInterested to hear why you think it's unimpressive. It just works, and it adds a fun, social element to payments without being creepy or annoying about it. The key to the product is the strength of the network. They got all the major banks and CC providers to sign onto the platform, which was unprecedented. So from that standpoint, it's a fantastic product.
- ethanbond 11y ago
- LeoPanthera 11y ago"Service would be rival to PayPal’s Venmo platform" It's interesting that this is the subtitle. That is not the first service I would have compared the idea to.
- adpirz 11y agoSincerely curious - which is? This sounded like a direct competitor to Venmo to me.
- LeoPanthera 11y agoSquare Cash? Facebook's... money thing? (What's it called?) Even PayPal itself!
- nhstanley 11y agoI know this is anecdotal, but everyone I know uses Venmo. I have never met anyone who uses Square Cash or Messenger, and I have both apps. To be fair, I don't know anyone in the US that uses WhatsApp, but all my friends in Europe use it. So, maybe it's a regional thing? I would love to see real usage statistics on those.
- josephjrobison 11y agoI think it depends on the circles you run in. I think clusters of friends and family members probably use different services. My extended extended group of 100+ people all use Venmo (can tell by activity in Venmo feed). That being said, I ran into someone recently who uses Square Cash with all her friends, but that's the first person I've hear using Square Cash (I downloaded it when it came out but no one else was using it.) A very interesting real-world example of the network effect among second tier services. Second tier as is not FB, Pinterest, LinkedIn.
- Vraxx 11y agoIt's definitely anecdotal, and as a sibling poster said, it depends on your circles. Mine anecdotally happens to be all square cash and no venmo given the ease of setup for square cash.
- drcode 11y agoYes! I was just thinking: One hundred person-to-person payment services aren't enough... we need 101! Seriously though, Apple has a terrible time creating online services (http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-and-the-cloud-a-magnificent-missed-opportunity/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-and-the-cloud-a-magnifice...) and there is no way another entry in the "Proprietary, heavily policed, middle-man-encumbered social payment tool" is going to go anywhere.
- codyb 11y agoThere's plenty of mapping services and there was one predominant one, and yet Apple took a huge chunk of that market from Google just by having their maps preinstalled on their phones. Apple pay works really nicely. I could see using this new person to person service instead of Venmo if it comes preinstalled, works nicely, has Apple's generally strong privacy controls and policies, and is super simple to use. Seems like a smart move to me on Apple's part.
- drcode 11y agoYes, apple could probably capture 10% of this market and make some profit. If that is your yardstick for "success", they can reach it. But fracturing the market by yet another 10% is not my idea of the future of money.
- happyscrappy 11y agoThere are a lot of encrypted messaging apps but only iMessage is actually usable, plus Apple already has your billing info.
- sunnyps 11y agoWhatsapp would like to have a word with you. With iMessage you have to turn off SMS to make it really secure and once you do that you lose the ability to communicate with a large number of non-iOS users. OTOH Whatsapp is secure by default.
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- eva1984 11y agoAnd both persons should use iPhones? Nope.
- nnd 11y agoWhy do you need banks, when you can just transfer Bitcoin?
- drcode 11y agoThe payments will need the appearance of being inexpensive/free, so Apple needs to first use network effects to capture a chunk of the market, then they will strong-arm Banks into paying fees to Apple (They need to earn their 3% or whatever on every payment somehow) which the banks will then indirectly forward to customers.
- unfunco 11y agoIf Apple introduces this, it will likely require scalability higher than that of the current blockchain, which allows for roughly seven transactions per second. Peer-to-peer is definitely the way forward, but for now, banks have the infrastructure, and the customers.
- drcode 11y agoThere are cryptocurrencies now with more scalable architectures... I'm just counting my blessings that Apple is foolish enough to build another centralized system that is sure to be hobbled by AML requirements and misguided fraud-prevention measures. Having a centrally-mediated, proprietary cryptocurrency endorsed by Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook is the worst thing that could happen to the cryptocurrency community right now, so I'm glad none of these companies are pursuing this opportunity yet.
- kristianp 11y agoThis will be fixed when it's needed. To deviate from the discussion, I don't know why Bitcoin doesn't move to a faster block time. Less time to confirm a transaction, more blocks per minute, more transactions per second.
- drcode 11y agoIt is very, very unlikely any major architectural tweak will happen with Bitcoin ever again. The only thing that will ever happen is maybe a few additional opcodes (to enable lightning networks perhaps) but even that will take many years. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing... although I'm certainly not a fan of this approach)
- Animats 11y agoApple already had Apple Pay. What's better about the new one?
- MBCook 11y agoApple Pay is consumer -> business, so you can buy groceries at Whole Foods. This is consumer -> consumer. Letting me send my friend $5 to split the tab on the pizza he's ordering or a quick $20 birthday gift to a niece.
- Animats 11y agoPayPal originally offered that, then dropped it. Is there a major business there?
- lordnacho 11y agoThe question is why it hasn't happened sooner. This thing in your pocket is not just your telephone, but also your watch, map, calendar, contact book, music player, library, and so on. It can't be long before it's also your passport and your wallet. These are things that had a life as separate items in days of yore and separate websites not long ago. They're also things that naturally lend themselves to the format of a phone. You'd have thought the mobile wallet would have been the first thing on the minds of the big platform companies.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- amelius 11y ago> The question is why it hasn't happened sooner. I guess the hard part is that agreements need to be made to reach standards. And since everybody would like to be the "gatekeeper" of a payment service, this is particularly difficult. By the way, I'm also still waiting for a password manager in my watch that seamlessly integrates with my desktop/laptop computer.
- reportingsjr 11y agoBecause it already exists? Take a look at google wallet. Facebook has a money thing as well.
- josephpmay 11y agoIt has already happened. College students don't pay each other back in cash. They do so in Venmo
- ethanbond 11y agoYep, Venmo is the go-to on my campus. I actually prefer Square Cash as a product but Venmo has the adoption necessary.
- NN88 11y agoKenya has been doing this for close to a decade: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-18 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/ec...
- sjg007 11y agoThis will be apple pay via ACH basically. It will allow merchants to avoid the 1% charge on debit cards etc..
- untog 11y agoBut it's describing a person-to-person service, not merchants.
- mortenjorck 11y agoThat's how it starts. Which, presumably is the same vector for Square Cash.
- untog 11y agoIt is? Given that Square already does merchant payments it would be a pretty odd direction.
- gkop 11y agoSquare Cash for Business followed regular (consumer) Square Cash. Square Cash for Business lets Square save money by charging debit cards instead of credit cards and spinning it as more convenient for everybody (it is very convenient once set up).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jhgg 11y agoI don't see at all how this is in competition with any cryptocurrency. This is competing with the likes of Square Cash (via app/snapchat), facebook messenger, venmo, etc...
- lanewinfield 11y agoLast time I checked (when I just unlocked my phone and verified), BTC wallets are allowed as of about a year ago.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoThe US is so archaic in banking I'm not surprised that it takes Apple to do something about it, a shame. I'm still sending a paper check to the landlord every month, ha! What is this, the 70's? The rest of the world already has direct, often immediate, free money transfers a few clicks away, and for a long time. We should focus there, rather than inserting more middle-men. When I was in New Zealand, we even paid for cookies and such with it. Just paste in the account number, type in the amount, and hit the send key, done.
- flyrain 11y agoIn China, it is also very convenient to send money by cellphone by scan some code. It's that easy.
- rahimnathwani 11y agoI presume you're talking about WeChat or AliPay payment. The US has equivalents, but they're not as advanced. The closest US equivalent to WeChat payment is Venmo. But I can use WeChat to pay in McDonald's, not just to send money to friends. The closest US equivalent to Alipay is Paypal. But with Alipay I can not only pay for online purchases and pay utility bills, I can also see a list of utility bills I have yet to pay.
- forumuid 11y agoAlipay has a interesting and convenient feature named Acoustic Payment,which support Person-To-Person payment through mobile phone's Speaker
- rahimnathwani 11y agoWow. This is pretty cool. In the English version on Android, it's called 'Sound Pay'. When activated, it makes a repeated 'shoop shoop-shoop-shoop' sound, whilst it scans for other devices in the same mode.
- seekingcharlie 11y ago
- baronofcheese 11y agoIn Denmark we have two competing solutions. One is MobilePay, where you register your credit card and then you can make payments to contacts in your phone book which are also registered. It doesn't matter which bank you have. No fees, however there is a 2500 DKK limit of how much you can use and receive each day. The other one is Swipp, which is a collaboration between all the small banks, which is integrated in their mobile banking apps, which kind of works as MobilePay, it is just tied directly to your account. The MobilePay one is the most popular and stores have begun to accept that as payment as well, making it possible to use NFC or a QR code which you scan in the store when you check out. Some smaller stores just have a phone number you transfer money to. Works pretty well and has been for the past ~2 years.
- habosa 11y agoI'll use Venmo until they pry it from my hands, it's one of the most life-transforming services I have ever used. I'll just repost my comment from the last Venmo thread here: ========================================= Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBerry app). I used to use it exclusively by SMS starting around 2011. It used to be smart enough where I could text in "Pay John $5 for food" and it would figure out which John I meant and do it. I loved that. It's been amazing to watch Venmo grow to what it is now. If I could only keep three apps on my smartphone, I would choose Uber/Lyft, Venmo, and Google Maps. I can't navigate my life without all three of those. In my last year of college my Venmo year in review showed that I had spent $17k on Venmo and received $18k. So not a huge net, just a constant movement of money in and out among my friends (rent, food, parties, etc). If I had to use cash we would have never been able to make the small things work, and if I had to use PayPal I would have accrued $100s to $1000s in fees. So basically: thank you Venmo. You make my life measurably simpler.
- x0x0 11y agoI'm still stunned that people use Venmo. Letting paypal or any of their ilk -- and I'm one of the many people with a very negative paypal experience -- have access to your bank account sidesteps many or most of the consumer protections that credit cards give you. It's all fine until it isn't, and when it goes wrong, Venmo has possession of your money and can suck funds straight out of your checking account. Your cc doesn't and can't. If something goes wrong between you and your cc, they have to go to court to get their hands on your cash and you have a whole set of protections, ranging from general consumer laws to the courts themselves, the FDCPA, and the CFPB. viz http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/safety_net/2015/02/venmo_security_it_s_not_as_strong_as_the_company_wants_you_to_think.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/safety_net/2015/02/...
- jaysonelliot 11y agoVenmo still takes several days to transfer the money to your account, and you have to remember to request the funds—they don't even begin the transfer process until you do that. It would literally be faster to write your friend a check. We need instant cash transfers in the United States, like the rest of the world has.
- bg0 11y agoI love Apple and all but they'd have to somehow make it easier then Venmo, because it would be pretty hard to convince my non-tech friends AGAIN to move away from something that works so well
- bnj 11y agoEasier than having it automatically installed on your phone, already aware of your contacts and payment details, and able to recognize nearby iphones and offer them as Payee's? This service will push adoption of apple pay as well as benefit as people start to use it; I predict it'll take off here in exactly the same way that Paypass and similar took off in Australia when they were introduced. Lots of skepticism tied to a huge acceleration in uptake.
- bg0 11y agoGood point; +1 for not bashing my opinion. I will say that Venmo already is installed, is aware of my contacts, who I pay the most, and my payment details. But I use Apple Pay and I agree that it would be heavily adopted just because it's already there and it's one less "account" people have to worry about.
- not_that_noob 11y agoApple's major advantage over Venmo and others is that they don't need to make money off the payment service. They can give this away for free, because they really care about the device margin. And using geo+TouchID would make for a very secure service, minimizing fraud problems that competitors would have to deal with. Apple's in a unique position to make this happen. And yes, it could be bad news for Square.
- Supersaiyan_IV 11y agoThis is the solution to this problem as it exists in Sweden: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.bankgirot.swish&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.bankgirot.s...
- cm2187 11y agoIndependently of the "cool factor", there is one more consideration to take into account. With the multiplication of electronic payment systems we are at risk of physical cash becoming marginalised. From a practical point of view I am not sure I would miss it, but from a privacy point of view this would certainly becoming a loss. Every single payment would end up being tracked. Another surveillance state dream coming to reality.
- armaxt 11y agoApple got big money and only one successful product. They relentlessly want to own another successful product or service but I hope they won't.
- themartorana 11y agoYou have to be kidding me. You don't get to be the biggest company on the planet with one successful product. They may not be the biggest in everything they're successful at, but they don't need to be #1, as long as they're the #1 premium.