For a little while, Apple’s been going back and forth on whether to develop a money transfer system that’s similar to existing apps such as Venmo and Square Cash. Now it seems like they’re back on the idea again.
As Recode reports, Apple has recently brought up the idea in discussions with others in the payment industry and is attempting to figure out when an announcement might come.
Apple flirted with the idea before (in 2015, as the aforementioned article notes) but backed away, likely because such services aren’t immediate winners and the marketplace was already starting to feel crowded at that point.
But such cash apps have proven to be cash cows for several companies that have taken the plunge. Venmo registered about $17.6 billion in transfers in 2016, and Chase’s QuickPay service cleared around $28 billion.
Even with the potential lucrative benefits, Apple again might step back from a launch, as some within the company are cautioning that there hasn’t been anything set in stone yet.
On a similar note, that story also mentions that Apple’s working on a debit card with Visa that would allow consumers to spend money sent to them through a service without having to wait around for clearance from their bank account.