Apple’s Venmo Competitor Could Be Baked Into iMessage

Yesterday we reported that according to the rumors, Apple could be thinking of launching a person-to-person payment service. What this does is that it allows users to send money to another user directly, kind of like PayPal or like Facebook Messenger where users can send money to each other.

However it was not clear how this service would work, but as it turns out Apple could be taking a page out of Facebook’s book. According to a report from Quartz, it seems that they have heard from people familiar with the matter that Apple’s Venmo competitor could be based on iMessage, in which the feature would be baked into the messaging platform.

One of the reasons why is because it is one of the most popular default apps on the iPhone, and that it is especially popular amongst the younger crowd. A survey also found that 60% of teens claim that iMessage is their preferred messaging app. We suppose that makes sense especially since all iOS devices do come with the app preinstalled, meaning that it’s just a matter of setting it up for use.

That being said, the report from yesterday did state that Apple is currently in talks with banks and that these talks are pretty early. This means that there is no guarantee that Apple will move forward with this, and if they do, there’s really no telling when it will be launched, although an announcement at WWDC 2016 would most probably be the best time (we’re just speculating).

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones, Rumors
Tags: Apple Pay, imessage, paypal