To be clear, this is in practice basically a competitor for Venmo/Cash App/Paypal, but built into your iphone? I only did a cursory glance at it but is there an Android app planned for this? In my experience, people want to send money to one another across different mobile OSes.
Yup, pretty much. I can't imagine how Apple concluded that "It's exactly like Venmo in every way, but it only works for people with iPhones!" would make a particularly compelling value proposition.
The sad part is that these apps are needed at all. In Australia the government just regulated that all banks must support free and instant money transfers and that email addresses and phone numbers be supported as addresses to send to.
So if your friend wants to send you money, you type their email on any bank app and it pops up with their legal name confirming you have the right person. The money shows up instantly.