Apple Pay ‘Venmo Killer’ Won’t Have Fees for Credit Card Payments?

Apple’s iOS 11 will release this week on Tuesday, September 19th. A new feature being introduced is the ability to use Apple Pay to pay friends with a simple text. Dubbed the ‘Venmo Killer’, text payments are free, apparently even when paying with debit or credit card, according to Time.

Time notes: There also doesn’t appear to be an additional fee for credit card transactions made with the payment tool. On Venmo and Square Cash, users who link up their credit cards to the app instead of their bank accounts pay a 3% fee on the money they send through the app.

When you get paid, your money is securely kept in Apple Pay Cash and instantly available for you to transfer to your bank account, send to someone, or spend with Apple Pay.

Person to person payments and Apple Pay Cash are available only in the U.S. on iPhone SE, iPhone 6 or later, iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation), iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 or later, and Apple Watch. Account security checks may require additional time to make funds available.

The video shown on Time (pictured above) shows clearly that there aren’t any fees, though I’m not sure as to the source of that video.

I don’t consider this a scalable way of racking up credit card point, and wouldn’t recommend scaling regardless, but it’s a free way of paying friends without having to disclose bank or debit card information, and racking up a few credit card points along the way as well. I expect there’ll be some ingrained limits to prevent people from overusing the credit card feature.

Time mentions that this feature will become available as an update to iOS 11 sometime this fall, not initially at launch.

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31 Comments
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jcb
jcb (@guest_482480)
September 25, 2017 11:03

I don’t think this is true. Every blog I’ve read about iOS 11 new features mentions a standard 2.7% fee I believe

az
az (@guest_479664)
September 19, 2017 16:44

Upgraded to iOS 11, didn’t find apple pay button in iMessage.

Michael H
Michael H (@guest_478659)
September 17, 2017 23:33

Another big question is if it counts as “Mobile Wallet Spending” for the purposes of the Altitude Reserves 3% return.

I’d send money to myself ALL DAY LONG and happily pay a 3% fee to get 4.5% back in travel..

Josh
Josh (@guest_478801)
September 18, 2017 10:07

Until they close your account 🙂

John
John (@guest_478522)
September 17, 2017 17:26

Apple doesn’t do free. Must be a typo somewhere

Nun
Nun (@guest_478490)
September 17, 2017 15:47

Time is never reliable and journalism is dead. They are sure to be wrong.

Ed
Ed (@guest_478530)
September 17, 2017 17:51

So true.

Elmer
Elmer (@guest_478483)
September 17, 2017 15:25

Ha! To think anything from Apple will be free to both parties is just being naive. Not a chance.

parkdanil
parkdanil (@guest_478434)
September 17, 2017 13:24

Oh boy this ones gonna get blown away by MSers real fast.
These sort of things tend to lead to antitrust suits, monopolizing markets and such.

Ferris
Ferris (@guest_478431)
September 17, 2017 13:12

Just like there are people who MS 7 figures per year, there will be people who abuse this and get it shut down quickly. Hopefully it would ban Apple IDs of these people. Could be nice to send a few $50-100 payments here and there and help with Minimum Spend, but otherwise it’s an easy way to get shut down. You don’t owe people $500 over and over.

qmc
qmc (@guest_478486)
September 17, 2017 15:37

Unless it’s share of rent maybe

AdamH
AdamH (@guest_478417)
September 17, 2017 11:55

I think this is fake news. It has been previously reported Green Dot is working behind the scenes as the provider of Apple Pay Cash and that CC will have a 3% fee. I don’t think we are going to be so lucky to get free CC transfers.

Ed
Ed (@guest_478529)
September 17, 2017 17:50

Time was expert at fake news for most of 2016.😀

Wany
Wany (@guest_478412)
September 17, 2017 11:30

Somehow, I remember seeing discussion back in June when this was first announced that person-to-person payment using debit/credit card is not free.

Found it,
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/5/15741636/apple-pay-p2p-venmo-competitor-apple-pay-cash-money-transfer

Jon
Jon (@guest_478438)
September 17, 2017 13:44

Debit is free, credit card is not

qmc
qmc (@guest_478485)
September 17, 2017 15:36

VGC/AGC?