Apple's competitor to Venmo could be on the way
A new peer-to-peer payment service may be coming later this year.
Will this get folks onboard with mobile payments?
Apple wants a piece of Venmo's market.
The iPhone maker held talks recently with payments companies in hopes of introducing its own money-transfer service akin to PayPal's Venmo, according to a report Thursday from Recode.
The new peer-to-peer payment service, which could be coming later this year, would reportedly allow iPhone owners to send cash digitally to other iPhone owners. Venmo and Square Cash, meanwhile, let both Apple and Google's Android phone users move around money. The report also mentioned that Apple was considering its own prepaid card that would run on Visa's debit network.
An Apple representative declined to comment on the report.
The new service, which was rumored two years ago, could help bolster Apple Pay, the company's mobile payments service. Apple Pay gave mobile payments a jumpstart when it was unveiled in 2014, but most people so far haven't adopted such services, including Samsung Pay and Android Pay, instead sticking with cash and plastic.
There's a chance this peer-to-peer service could get more people involved in Apple Pay, but Apple would be competing against quite a few existing players, including millennial favorite Venmo, Square Cash and Zelle, a new service from a handful of banks that's launching in mid-2017.