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Apple Cash

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141–150 of 208 posts

Re: Apple Cash

#141

I find it odd things like this, Venmo, Square cash even need to exist. There’s a reason none of them get used much (or even exist) outside the US. Just fix banking in the US and they problems they solve disappear. In the UK (and the EU I believe too) bank transfers and instant and free. Digital banks like Monzo make it even easier (through contact syncing, better UI). Third party apps need not get involved.

US FedNow instant payments go live next year.

Re: Apple Cash

#142
post #40

Isn't this just the same as a virtual pre-paid credit card, which every bank offers nowadays? Except, perhaps this will allow Apple to take our money and use it to invest.

They can't invest your money. The bank has to ensure a liquid balance for each person. Apple has zero control over that.

Consumers also enjoy CFPB protection/regulation with this product.

Apple calls Green Dot APIs for servicing and the backing account(s) is at Green Dot Bank.

Re: Apple Cash

#143

A bit of a product marketing snafu by Apple if I may say. 1. Apple Cash is apparently not cash, nor a wallet, but a card that is stored inside wallet. 2.There is already Apple Wallet, Apple Pay, Apple Card. It looks to me that they're all the same. Why can't I Pay with the Cash in my Wallet. Or can I?

If you look at the fine print, Apple Cash appears to be a UI/branding layer for Green Dot Bank, a 40 yo bank in Utah. I believe you essentially end up with a FDIC bank account and Apple Cash just puts a huge brand name and pretty UI on the debit card for that account. So Apple Pay is the service, Apple Card is their credit card and Apple Cash is their debit card via some bank. You can sidestep all that and just put y…

You still have to "sign up" for Apple Cash though, which is a process that involves uploading your government identification.

Re: Apple Cash

#144

What are the tax implications of this, if any? I know people in extended families regularly sending money between themselves. Can they expect the IRS knocking on the door and blaming them for hiding income? I am worried about them now. They will find this super convenient and will use it from day one. Hope this service is private.

I’m assuming you’re referring to gifts, not the transfer of money for goods or services (i.e. one person paying for everyone’s lunch and then getting repaid) If so, then this page may answer your question. Basically unless you’re transferring over $22k in total in a year using Apple Cash, you’re fine. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Yep, they're not penny-pinching each other. As you said, sometimes someone ends up paying for long family dinners thrice in a row but they're cool about it and somebody else just wires the person $400 a week or so later.

Multiply such occurrences several times a month and you get the idea.

Thanks for the link, it's helpful.

Re: Apple Cash

#145
post #103
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden there is a single cross-platform payment app since >10 yrs called Swish which all the banks are connected to, and you transfer money by entering the recipients mobile phone number and the amount. No fees and the transfer is instant. I guess it's luck that some countries happened to get the banks to agree to something like this at the particular time when the technology needed to support it just had matured…

Swish is just another proprietary solution though along with BankID. And BankID basically requires residency in Sweden (and much more), so it's not something you can install while visiting to pay at flea markets. Their only appeal is that they are ubiquitous.

It does not require residency in Sweden. I left in 2011. I'm not in SPAR anymore, which restricts some rare things, but not BankID or Swish.

Re: Apple Cash

#146

Launched 2019. Still no sign of it in the UK

> Still no sign of it in the UK

To be fair, it would be borderline pointless here. Bank transfers are instant and free in almost all cases, and competition from the challenger banks has made the process a lot smoother in the legacy banks’ apps too.

I think the only USP Apple’s offering would have here is nice iMessage integration.

Re: Apple Cash

#147
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Apple Cash is apparently not cash, nor a wallet, but a card that is stored inside wallet. 2.There is already Apple Wallet, Apple Pay, Apple Card. Nobody in technology, at least in the USA, seems to be able to make the marketing for their "payment things" understandable. On the Google side, there is (or was) Google Wallet (OG), Android Pay, Google Pay, gPay, now Google Wallet (new). I don't know which one I shoul…

Google Pay ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... ) can store my Tate and National Trust membership cards, my EU COVID passport (proof of vaccination and booster), as well as boarding passes. And it's smart enough to expire out cards from the pass as expired memberships or flights that have flown. Anything that can be represented in a barcode or QR code can be stored in it. Which of course…

How did you get your EU Covid pass added if i may ask? On my brand new Samsung phone it only lets me add predefined cards, most of which are quite useless (ie. Various US Transit Cards)

Re: Apple Cash

#148

I find it odd things like this, Venmo, Square cash even need to exist. There’s a reason none of them get used much (or even exist) outside the US. Just fix banking in the US and they problems they solve disappear. In the UK (and the EU I believe too) bank transfers and instant and free. Digital banks like Monzo make it even easier (through contact syncing, better UI). Third party apps need not get involved.

In Canada you’ve been able to send money to people for 15 years just by knowing their email address. You also set a security question. I also had a debit card I could use in most stores almost 30 years ago. I was shocked as a young adult when I could travel in the US and use my debit card to get money at almost any atm, yet Americans had to sometimes seek out the correct ATM, even in their country. I was shocked agai…

The flip side in Canada is our wire system for large transfers. We rolled our own technology and it is a complete failure. I do wire transfers many times per year and I would say 1/3 of them end in “lost” payments that require multiple phone calls and a number of days for the investigations group to track down. And this is through no error on the sender or recipient side (as explained by the investigations teams). There have been a number of articles over the last few years on the topic and I feel awful for those involved who actually do make a legitimate mistake (transpose numbers of a branch number for example) and never see their money again.

When it works perfectly, the transaction is still nowhere near instant (transfers “cross” only at certain times of the day, almost as if it involves actual people driving between banks - ludicrous!) and recipient banks often do not recognize receipt for a day. And the fees are relatively absurd ($80-120 to send and to the same to receive) considering Interac money transfers are free.

I’ll note that literally everyone I deal with shares the same experiences with wires.

It is bizarre that the largest, likely most important, transactions we have a system that works objectively far worse with fewer checks and balances and more opportunity for error than the system we use for meaningless small transactions.

Re: Apple Cash

#149
post #140
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that bank transfers are fast, instant most of the time these days. However, when people want to quickly send me money, they still usually ask for paypal, simply because it’s easier to tell someone a nickname or email address than my IBAN. not that this is an unsolvable issue, just sharing my experience from Germany.

If US we use Zelle, it's a for profit company owned by the large US banks. If your bank supports Zelle, you can send money instantly.

But, it’s not nearly as popular as Venmo. I’ve never been asked to send anyone money over Zelle, but Venmo is used often. Maybe it’s a regional thing (network effects are huge here), but just because something is supported by our banks doesn’t mean it gets used.

Also, I don’t necessarily want to login to my bank app to send money to someone to cover dinner. But a secondary app, like Venmo, is fine.

Re: Apple Cash

#150

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.

I've never used Venmo since I thought that it made your transactions public by default. Maybe this isn't even true, but I think it is and that just seemed so insane I didn't want to go anywhere near it.
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