UPDATED 23:35 EDT / APRIL 27 2017

APPS

Report: Apple is building a person-to-person payments service like Venmo

Apple Inc. wants a slice of a peer-to-peer money transfer market and is currently working on a Venmo-like money transfer service, according to a report published Thursday.

Recode, referencing “multiple sources familiar with the talks,” claims that the iPhone maker has recently held discussions with payments industry partners about introducing its own service, which would likely be an extension of its existing Apple Pay. The report noted that one source claimed the new service will be announced later this year, while another source said that an announcement and launch date have not yet been set.

Apple was first rumored to be looking at launching a P2P payments service back in 2015. A patent filed by the company in January 2016 detailed what the service could look like, including payments being able to be made through iMessage. phone calls, emails and even calendar invites.

In an interesting twist, Recode claimed that Apple has also held discussions with Visa about creating its own Visa debit cards. They would be tied to the new P2P service with the goal of allowing users to transfer money through the new service, then spend those funds immediately. The report said the Visa debit card may not be a physical card and may only come in a digital form.

A P2P payments service from Apple would compete in a crowded field that includes both traditional banks and startup companies such as the PayPal Inc.-owned Venmo, as well as the Square Inc.-owned Square Cash and PayPal itself. Venmo is said to be highly popular among millennials, having handled $17.6 billion in transfers last year and $6.8 billion in the first quarter of this year alone.

It’s claimed that Apple has been underwhelmed by the usage of Apple Pay over the past two and a half years and that launching a P2P payment service with the option of a debit card could give Apple Pay a serious boost. The move also could give Apple a position in a rapidly growing market, one that could reach $86 billion in transactions in the United States alone by 2018.

Picture: Mybloodtypeiscoffee/Wikimedia Commons

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