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Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

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161–170 of 203 posts

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#161
post #95

I'll use Venmo until they pry it from my hands, it's one of the most life-transforming services I have ever used. I'll just repost my comment from the last Venmo thread here: ========================================= Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBerry app). I used to use it exclusively by S…

I find venmo kludgey and irritating compared to square cash. It's more of a pain to sign up for, you have to manually ask for your money, they publicly transmit your transaction history to the world and it's not obvious that they do so. They also send you 'anti-fraud' emails if you make joke comments about your terrorist sandwich. It's like a paypal, but worse.

As someone who worked on payment processing in the US, there are a hundred absurd or obscure regulations. The most important involve making sure terrorists can't use your service to launder money; this usually boils down to adding some basic or clunky checks as there's really nothing else to do.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planet Money actually did a podcast about this. Banks are basically incentivized not to have it and keep ACH that way it is. A free and fast transfer service would destroy their wire revenue stream. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episo...

Yup. BofA charges $35 or $45 for wire transfers. That's a hell of a lot of money when you have 200'000'000 captive customers.

For domestic transfers, under what circumstances do people use wire instead of ACH transfers? I've only used wire transfers for international purposes.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still astounds me. I'm Australian but also hold a US account. The difference in ease between the two is insane. I cannot believe how difficult it is to simply wire money from a US bank account. In Australia, you can make a free transfer entirely from web/app and it will be received, often the next day. It's no wonder why Paypal/Venmo are so huge in the US...

In NZ it is immediate if same bank, 10pm that night if different. That few hours though can be nice if you change your mind.

On my New Zealand business account we can see transactions turn up every hour - that's how often they are cleared between the major banks. And my personal credit card balance on my mobile app changes seconds after I make a purchase.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#164
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have similar tech here in the US, it just hasn't been adopted by everybody yet.

Where? I bank with Wells Fargo and to make a wire transfer to anyone in the US, I have to physically walk into a branch and it costs $20.

Wells Fargo's online banking can send money to anyone with an email address, mobile number or Wells Fargo account number. And there's no charge to use it, though they have a message saying they might start charging in the future.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. BofA charges $35 or $45 for wire transfers. That's a hell of a lot of money when you have 200'000'000 captive customers.

For domestic transfers, under what circumstances do people use wire instead of ACH transfers? I've only used wire transfers for international purposes.

Only time I've had to wire money was for the downpayment on a house. Apparently there's a limit to how much you can send over ACH (at least with some banks).

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#166

The US is so archaic in banking I'm not surprised that it takes Apple to do something about it, a shame. I'm still sending a paper check to the landlord every month, ha! What is this, the 70's? The rest of the world already has direct, often immediate, free money transfers a few clicks away, and for a long time. We should focus there, rather than inserting more middle-men. When I was in New Zealand, we even paid for…

I'm a freelancer and I've had happily clients pay me through PayPal, Venmo, Dwolla and other services. But if I were a landlord, I'd sadly ask for a check too. A lot of U.S. jurisdictions require a landlord not to accept rent in certain circumstances from a tenant he's trying to evict. It's well established how to do this with a check: don't cash it, and possibly send it back to the sender certified mail. I wouldn't…

Is that really true? I hear claims of that sort but never actualities (I worked for a rent payment company).

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#167
post #95

I'll use Venmo until they pry it from my hands, it's one of the most life-transforming services I have ever used. I'll just repost my comment from the last Venmo thread here: ========================================= Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBerry app). I used to use it exclusively by S…

Square or even PayPal are generally better. Venmo prefers that the 2 parties know each other which is a significant limitation.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#168
post #12

Yes! I was just thinking: One hundred person-to-person payment services aren't enough... we need 101! Seriously though, Apple has a terrible time creating online services ( http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-and-the-cloud-a-magnifice... ) and there is no way another entry in the "Proprietary, heavily policed, middle-man-encumbered social payment tool" is going to go anywhere.

I can think of 3 or 4. But 100?

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. BofA charges $35 or $45 for wire transfers. That's a hell of a lot of money when you have 200'000'000 captive customers.

For domestic transfers, under what circumstances do people use wire instead of ACH transfers? I've only used wire transfers for international purposes.

Walmart person to person. It's $10 for amounts over $50. American Express Bluebird cards have a person to person, and there is PayPal. PayPal debit MasterCard makes the last one an attractive option.

Re: Apple in Talks with US Banks to Develop Mobile Person-To-Person Payment Service

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In Australia, you can make a free transfer entirely from web/app and it will be received, often the next day." In the UK or China, it's minutes/hours, as long as you do the transfer before a certain time.

Sorry, should edit that - it's immediate for us in Australia if you have transferred to a certain person before OR if you use the same bank. It's the next day for external banks / people that you haven't transferred to before.

And I believe the big four banks are working on increasing that to four clearances per day.
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