Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is launching a peer-to-peer payments service, called Pay Cash, to take on Venmo, which is owned by Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL).
At its annual developer conference WWDC on Monday, the Cupertino-based tech giant announced that its new peer-to-peer payments service is part of iOS 11 mobile operating system, which launches later this year, CNBC reported.
Peer-to-peer payments allow users to send money to family and friends using smartphones. According to an estimate by Forrester Research, the total peer-to-peer payments market will reach $17 billion in transaction volume by 2019, Fortune reported.
Venmo, a mobile payment service owned by PayPal, allows users to send and receive money using a smartphone app or web interface. Users can link their bank accounts, debit cards, or credit cards to their Venmo account.
Venmo has seen impressive growth in recent years. The payment service processed a record $6.8 billion in the first quarter of 2017.
Craig Federighi, vice president of engineering at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), said that Pay Cash will let users send money directly to their contacts using the tech giant’s popular messaging app, iMessage. Pay Cash is linked with Apple Pay, a payment service that lets users shop and pay bills using the iPhone, Apple Watch-compatible devices, iPad, and Mac.
Apple Pay is currently available in only 15 countries and the iPhone maker has been working aggressively to bring the service to more countries and global markets. Apple Pay is a strong competitor of Samsung Pay, Android Pay, and Ali Pay.
Federighi claims that Apple Pay is the top contactless payment service on mobile devices nationwide. He said that the service will be available at 50% of retailers within the United States by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, shares of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) closed down 0.98% on Monday. The stock is up more than 32% so far this year. During the last 12 months, the stock has surged over 57%.