AppleInsider Staff
Apple Pay Cash is showing up in the Messages app for certain iOS users in Brazil, Ireland and Spain, suggesting an international rollout of Apple's peer-to-peer money transfer service is in the offing.
A number of users posted to Twitter screenshots showing what appears to be early preparations for an Apple Pay Cash introduction on Friday.
As seen in the image above, provided by Ireland-based CompuMop, an informational Apple Pay Cash panel is now featured in the Messages app drawer. The same asset, which instructs users to set up Apple Pay Cash in Settings, appeared on user devices prior to the service's U.S. launch in December.
In Spain, users are also seeing options to configure an Apple Pay Cash card in the Wallet app for iOS. The digital card ties to a valid debit or credit card and is a requirement for sending and receiving money through the service.
Twitter posts suggest the feature might also be headed to Brazil in the near future, 9to5Mac reports. Brazil has yet to gain access to Apple Pay mobile payments, though Apple CEO Tim Cook during the company's most recent quarterly earnings conference call said the service would arrive in the large South American country later this year.
It should be noted that only a few iOS device users in each of the three countries are seeing the Apple Pay Cash option, and none have reported completing a transaction. For now, it seems Apple is merely preparing its backend ahead of an official launch.
Apple introduced Apple Pay Cash in the U.S. alongside iOS 11.2 as an in-house competitor to services like Venmo. With direct Messages and Siri integration, Apple Pay Cash sends money to other iOS users, who can spend the received funds on Apple Pay purchases. Alternatively, users can transfer money from the Apple Pay Cash card to their bank account.
The service has been limited to users in Apple's domestic market for nearly three months, but today's reports point to a near future international rollout.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
3 Comments
I wonder what the usage rates for this sort of thing is, I can’t imagine I will bother using it.
It's still pretty early. I can say Apple PayCash is simple to set up and even easier to use. I just added a debit card (previously only had a credit card in Apple Wallet) and sent $25 in an iMessage to a friend (asking her to buy Alice Water’s latest book, on founding Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Given the subject, it seemed local was the way to go, rather than gift her a book through Amazon). Presto, it was done! And she has incentive to actuate ApplePay. In short, great network effect potential.
Person to person is no small opportunity— check out PayPal’s Venmo— and might help spur more Pay at vendors, as account surpluses build up, etc. As Apple offers more services, anything that makes it frictionless to pay is a boost.
Not sure if Apple can do foreign transfer payments of immigrant workers to their relatives in home country. Are there many ex-pat Brazilians working in North America or Europe? Certainly a big market elsewhere.