Talk Of Apple Peer-to-Peer Payment Resurfaces Again

Apple has plans to announce a new service, with the possible name of Apple Cash, in late 2015, possibly at its fall iPhone event. The Venmo-like service would allow iPhone user to pay friends and family members using the ecosystem of the Cupertino-based tech giant.

The service is still in very early stages of development, MacRumors reported. The report comes 12 months after Apple was first rumored to be talking with several banks of an in-house, peer-to-peer payment service. MacRumors’ sources say the service would include a major partnership with Visa.

It would allow users to get digital pre-paid cards which would also run on the debit network of Visa. However, it would be directly tied to the peer-to-peer service of Apple that could be added into Apple Pay. Users could receive payment from Apple Cash from a pal, and use the Visa Card and Apple Pay to spend the money at a bricks and mortar retailer or online store without the need to wait for the transaction to clear to their bank account.

The platform is one way to hike adoption and usage of Apple Pay which had been slow during its first two years. Apple believes it is one way of replacing cards and cash. The users of the new payments service are not expected to be charged by Apple.

Recode notes that if the service would finally push through, it would compete with what major banks offer, PayPal, Venmo, and Square Cash in digital money transfers that have become more competitive. The money-transfer firms handle big volume of funds. In 2016, the QuickPay service of Chase processed $28 billion. For the same year, Venmo handled $17.6 billion which had doubled from the previous year.

9To5Max explains that the Apple prepaid cards would act as a proxy for the transactions that take place over Apple Pay. Since Apple knows who paid who, it could temporarily foot the bill until all the backend payments would clear.