In India, the coalescing of payments around the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)'s payment network and standard called Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has been a gamechanger. Bank consumers can create virtual addresses that they can give to any individual or entity and use it for sending / receiving money. The recipient can be a customer of any bank, not necessarily theirs. As long as the bank is on the NPCI backbone (almost all banks are), the transaction is safe, secure and seamless. At the moment, there are no fees for using UPI and the transaction limit is Rs. 200,000 (approx. USD 2500), so a vast majority of small ticket purchases can be done electronically. The transaction volume statistics at NPCI is pretty impressive. <a href="https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics" rel="nofollow">https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics</a>
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.
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?
Why is this on the front page..? Apple Cash has been around for years. It doesn't even look like they've added anything new unless I'm missing something?
I find it hilarious that at this Apple Canada help page:<p><a href="https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207886" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207886</a><p>it says among other requirements for Apple Cash:<p>What you need<p>- Be at least 18 years old and live in the United States.
To be clear, this is in practice basically a competitor for Venmo/Cash App/Paypal, but built into your iphone?<p>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.
Really silly and not related, but I've tried half a dozen of these things for managing my kid's allowance and general spending, and they have all been a PITA. Either my kids can't sign up without a drivers license and credit check, or they can't send money to me or between themselves, or something else entirely. Maybe Apple has fixed this, but I do remember also trying Cash, and there was some deal breaker for my use.<p>Anyway, I ended up just writing a Matrix bot* that's a glorified spreadsheet. It's 600 lines of Rust, or probably 100 of Python. Works a treat!<p>* <a href="https://github.com/pkulak/bots/blob/main/src/bots/money.rs" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/pkulak/bots/blob/main/src/bots/money.rs</a>
New marketing site for Apple Cash? Looks like they also added <a href="https://www.apple.com/wallet/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/wallet/</a> and <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/</a>.
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?<p>I am worried about them now. They will find this super convenient and will use it from day one. Hope this service is private.
From the FAQ: "send and receive money in Messages or Wallet. The money you receive appears on your Apple Cash card in Wallet."<p>Can I get the money out of Apple Cash, except for spending it via Apple Pay? Can I withdraw the money to a bank account? If not, I find it a bit limiting. If someone sends me money via Paypal, I can transfer it to my bank account and withdraw it from an ATM, or use it to buy stocks, or donate it to some organization that doesn't take Apple Pay payments...
> Apple Cash services are provided by Green Dot Bank<p>Never heard of Green Dot Bank. They seem to have these banks listed under them:<p>"GO2bank, GoBank and Bonneville Bank".<p>I assume that Green Dot Bank isn't holding the money itself but passing it on to a bigger bank. Anyone know who's actually behind this ?<p>Edit: I think maybe Green Dot is holding the money themselves on this are they a well known bank in the USA ?
The link to the 'Apple Cash setup support page' is a 307 temporary redirect to the Apple Pay page for me. Not sure if this is due to locale, I don't have Apple Cash in my Apple Wallet settings as well...
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.
looks like a digital debit "gift card" system.<p>Smart. Its a clever way to deal with legal boundaries on transferring money. Should be interesting to see them get it past Australian regulations.
interesting to see Apple venture into SERVICES rather than PRODUCTS. it’s typical “milking” strategy: get as much as you can from the success of iphone before it’s too late. as long as these services keep bringing cash to the company, I don’t think Apple will introduce yet a new category of products, such as Apple Glasses.
You can check the participating banks worldwide here: <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204916" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204916</a><p>Just want to post it since Apple kinda buried it deep down.