Apple Pay Became a Serious Venmo Competitor Today
If there's one thing those dastardly Millennials like more than avocado toast, it's their iPhones. If there's one thing about their iPhones they love, it's the ability to split the check for avocado toast with the Venmo app. Well, Apple just went and made Millennial lives that much easier.
Let's be real though; Venmo is pretty great all around. The app already just lets you send and receive money from anyone on any phone, provided they've got the app on their device. Apple is no fool when it comes to seeing how well received and how high usage and retain rates are on apps within its ecosystem, so Apple Pay adding in a peer-to-peer payment system seemed like an obvious next step.
Once iOS 11 arrives this fall, Apple Pay's P2P functionality will be built right into iMessage as an app within the app. Anyone will iMessage will be able to send and receive money directly within iMessage, which is in turn authenticated by the iPhone's fingerprint sensor. The funds are then taken from your connected accounts right in Apple Wallet.
Any monies you receive however are placed on a Pay Cash virtual card. This card holds money securely that you can use between friends and family in the P2P service, or you can use it to make other Apple Pay purchases before funds are drawn from your bank accounts. Transferring it to your bank account is also an option, but soon enough Apple will have an Apple Bank too, so you may as well just sign over everything you own to them now. Don't worry, that's not really happening... yet.
Apple Pay's peer-to-peer function will arrive with the fall iOS 11 update, and will be compatible with iPhone, iPad and the Apple Watch when it arrives.