Android Pay Adds International Remittances
Android Pay users can now make international Peer to Peer (P2P) payments. That means people will be able to send money to friends and family in other nations using the popular app.
Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) has joined forces with a startup called WorldRemit; to let Android Pay users send money to 120 million accounts around the world, TechCrunch reported. This and integration with Facebook Messenger for group payments might make Android Pay the gold standard in digital wallets.
International remittances are a huge market the World Bank estimated that people transmitted $442 billion to persons in other countries. That will enable Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to reach many of the two billion “unbanked” people in the developing world.
It also competes directly with PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) which owns Venmo and Xoom. This probably means that Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is not planning to enter the payments business.
WorldRemit might become a major player in the remittance and finance business because it has raised $148 million in venture capital. The next logical step for WorldRemit will be to launch its own digital wallet.
It’s hard to Get Paid by Apple Pay Cash
Apple Pay Cash is not all that the company is claiming it is. Users of the popular app do not actually send cash to friends and family.
Instead they send a sort of electronic gift card, CO.Design’s Mark Wilson pointed out. If users want to put actual cash into their bank accounts they will have to go through a special protocol.
That enables Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to generate float but it makes it hard to get cash for things like rent or utilities. It encourages people to spend the money at merchants that accept Apple Pay in an attempt to get more people to use the App.
Apple claims that transfers to banks cannot be automated which sounds like a crock. Alphabet has automated payments on Android Pay and Facebook allows such payments. There are no automated payments on PayPal which generates a lot of float and revenue for that company.
Wilson pointed out that PayPal invests the funds until they are spent; which makes it a pretty shrewd company and a value investment. It looks as if Apple has figured out finance and how to make money from Apple Pay. That makes Apple a good investment but might make Apple Pay Cash a poor deal for iPhone users.
