Apple Working on Mobile Person-to-Person Payment Service

Apple is in talks with U.S. banks over a potential person-to-person mobile payments service, reports The Wall Street Journal . Such a service would perhaps be positioned as an expansion to Apple Pay, and it would allow people to send each other payments, much like PayPal's Venmo or Square's Square Cash service.

Little is known about the talks at this early date, but The Wall Street Journal
says communication between Apple and the banks is ongoing and it's not known if Apple has inked any concrete deals. Apple is said to be speaking to Chase, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank.

The talks are ongoing and it is unclear if any of the banks have struck an agreement with Apple, these people said. Key details remain in flux, including technical aspects that would determine how the service would tie into the banking industry's existing infrastructure, they said.

Person-to-person services like Venmo and Square Cash are used for personal payments and are useful for things like paying back a friend who bought dinner or splitting a rent payment. With Apple's system, iPhone and iPad owners could perhaps use Apple Pay to send secure payments to one another from a checking account.