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(CNN Spanish) - The panorama of applications to send money and make payments is quite diverse and users have increased in recent years.
For 2019, the Pew Research Center estimates that the vast majority of adults in the United States have some type of mobile phone and 81% of Americans own this type of device, compared to 2011, when according to a survey of this center only 35% of adults had cell phones.
The spread of the internet and the massive use of digital media have made this type of application appear more and more and that consumers are increasingly willing to get rid of their plastic cards to move their transactions to the phones.
It is estimated that the multimillion dollar digital wallet market reaches $ 400 billion in annual flows by 2022 in the United States alone, according to a perspective of the consultant McKinsey in its report “Global payments 2018”, published in October last year.
“Mobile commerce, including in-app payments and mobile browser payments, is the dominant factor driving the strong growth of digital commerce, due to the growing adoption of smartphones, a growing shift towards online shopping and the improvements in network bandwidth, ”the report adds.
Person-to-person payments through mobile applications have a higher level of penetration especially in young people between 18 and 34 years (33%), and in adults between 35 and 54 years (24%) in the United States, according to the McKinsey report.
These are some of the most popular applications for money transfers to family and friends.
Venmo
It is a payment service that has been gaining followers in recent years, mainly among people who use it to pay their friends.
This application that facilitates payments between people was launched in 2009 and is especially popular among millennials who use it to pay rent, split dinner bill, pay rent to your roommate or buy groceries. Uber also added it as a payment option last year.
The configuration is simple: users enter their information into the application and receive a text message to confirm. If they connect the service with their Facebook account, they can search for their friends and click on their names to send money via text messages.
Venmo was acquired by Braintree in 2012 and moved $ 208 million in transactions in 2017. The maximum amount you can send is $ 2,000 per week with a bank account and $ 2,000 per month with a credit card.
To use it you simply have to enter the amount you want to pay, choose a person (you can enter their name, phone number or email), detail the dollar amount and click on “pay”. If your friend does not have a Venmo account, you will receive a message that suggests that you set one to get your cash.
Venmo does not charge for basic services such as sending money from a linked bank account, debit card or your Venmo balance. Nor for receiving or withdrawing money in your Venmo account or using the standard transfer service to your bank account. Nor does it have monthly or annual fees, but it has fees for premium features such as ATM withdrawal from banks outside the application's networks.
Zelle
Formerly known as clearXchange, this application offers free payments from person to person. The service, for Android and iOS users, is backed by more than 30 US banks and is a direct rival to other applications such as Venmo, Apple Pay and Square Cash.
What makes Zelle different? On the one hand, convenience. You don't really have to sign up to use the service and enter your bank account information, and then make sure all your friends and family do too. Probably most of the people you know already have access to this app because it is configured to work with bank accounts such as Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. Check here the list of all the allied banks of Zelle.
Banking applications or websites have traditionally allowed money transfers in several ways, but they often require that you provide them with the account information of the person to whom you want to send the money. Sometimes both parties required registration and, in some cases, transactions could take a couple of days. Also, it wasn't always an option if you didn't share the same bank.
With Zelle, you can transfer funds from your checking account to that of another person in minutes. All you need is that person’s email address or phone number. Zelle will automatically send that person a text or email message with a link that says he has a payment waiting for him. All you need to do is accept. You can also request funds from another person.
Apple Pay Cash
With this service, users can send money to other Apple users through the application integrated in iMessage, the default messaging application on Apple mobile devices.
With Apple Pay Cash you can send money from the debit or credit card stored in Apple Wallet, and a digital debit card will be deposited in the recipient's Apple Pay Cash account.
This service complements others such as Apple Pay for transactions in the App Store and in retail stores that accept the mobile payment function.
Like Venmo, with this app you can transfer the money to your bank, or simply store it in your Apple Pay Cash account for future purchases of Apple Pay.
These are the banks compatible with Apple Pay
PayPal
Since 2011 the electronic payment company allows you to send money to your friends through Facebook.
With the application simply called "Send money" you have the option of sending money from one friend to another. To use the service you only need to have the email address of the other person. If the money recipient does not have a PayPal account, you can create an account after receiving the message.
The application allows you to send and get money from your friends in a few minutes. The application is very useful for things like collecting, reimbursing a friend for the payment of your lunch or splitting the bill.
TransferWise
This application helps its users avoid high costs when transferring their funds to other countries and does so by allowing their clients to turn money into a TransferWise bank account in their home country. Then the startup removes the same amount from its local account and pays it to a second country of the user's preference.
By 2017, when he activated the option to make payments through Facebook, more than one million users transferred about $ 1 billion each month with this application, which is based in London. The technology venture has venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Virgin founder Richard Branson as investors and was valued at that time at an estimated $ 1.1 billion.
For two years, with this application you can make money transfers between the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union, however earlier this year, the money transfer company said it would limit money transfers within 12,849 dollars or outside the United Kingdom due to the volatility of the exchange rate caused by the instability of brexit.
Square cash
Square was launched in 2009 with the goal of allowing anyone with a mobile device to process credit card payments. The payment method has become especially popular among small businesses, such as street food stalls and boutique coffee shops. About 2 million merchants used for 2017 Square, an app that was created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Users do not need to register to use Square Cash. Someone can simply send an email to the recipient, with cash@square.com in the CC space and the payment amount as the subject line of the message.
The user will receive an email asking him to link a credit card to his account. The recipient enters a debit card number once and will have that account associated with their email later.
In addition to email, there is a Square Cash application for iOS and Android devices.
Square currently charges 2.6% of the cost of the transaction plus a fee of 10 cents.
Yellowpadper
This company is a pioneer in digital payment services in Latin America. It was founded in 2004 and currently serves in several countries of the region such as Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
According to its website, YellowPapper received the "first" capital investment from the World Bank for a mobile financial company in Latin America.
The application supports remittances and transfers between people by integrating user accounts into the platform.
To date, it registers 6.6 million unique users per month, 480 million transactions per year, operating in six countries and allied banks such as CitiBank, ScotiaBank, HSBC, Banco Azteca, Davivienda, Grupo Aval, Colpatria, Banco Pichincha, CorpBanca, Bancoomeva, and allies such as VISA, MasterCard, Movistar, among others.
In Latin America, thanks to the evolution of the telephone and smartphones, a step was taken further than in other countries. Now almost everyone has a phone in the region and people are using their smartphone to buy online, search online, ”Serge Elkiner co-founder of the company told CNN in Spanish in 2015.
Movii
This platform created by Colombians, which currently works only in Colombia, has the same principle of the aforementioned applications, and among its objectives is to share or transfer money to friends.
Through the application you can "Send money" between Movii users, entering the cell number of the user to whom you want to send the money, digital the value to send.
Movii offers services such as payment of services or digital content (if you do not have a conventional credit card), payment of bills, mobile recharges and sending money among friends. You can withdraw the money in allied points, a service that will have a rate of less than one dollar.
- With information from CNN.
International transfers
