By: Nick Gambino
It took them long enough but Apple is finally rolling out a peer-to-peer payment system called Apple Pay Cash.
With apps like Venmo, Cash and even PayPal allowing friends and family to square up restaurant bills and the cost of other activities for years, it’s surprising that Apple hasn’t made a play in this area until now. With Apple Pay, it seemed like a sure thing. Nevertheless, it’s here now.
Now, Apple Pay Cash just by its name alone insinuates that both the sender and receiver will need to have some sort of Apple device to take advantage of the system.
Payments are sent directly through iMessage. The money is then placed in your Wallet app on an Apple Pay Cash card. As long as you already have Apple Pay set up with a debit or credit card, this should be pretty easy to use. As it’s tied to the years-old system, when you send money it just uses whatever card is connected to your Apple Pay.
If you want to make things even easier than sending a simple payment through iMessage then you can just ask Siri to send it for you. Ya lazy bastard.
Once the recipient receives the money they have the choice to send that money to someone else using Apple Pay Cash, transfer to their bank or spend the money anywhere Apple Pay is accepted.
The new system is available now through the iOS 11.2 update. Once you update, restart your phone and you’ll be able to use it. The same goes for using the system on the Apple Watch. Just make sure you have watchOS 4.2 installed.
For now the update is only available in the U.S. with an international rollout hopefully coming in the near future. Seeing as though it was supposed to be available with the original release of iOS 11, it’s safe to say they’re ironing out some kinks and making sure it’s ready before the complete rollout.
