You Could Soon Be Able To Send Money Between iPhones

Apple is preparing to launch a new service that would allow iPhone users to send money to each other using their devices.

The person-to-person payment system would be different to Apple Pay in that users could easily transfer money between devices, possibly even just by entering a phone number, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple is already reportedly in discussions with several major US banks, including the likes of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Capital One, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp., in preparation to launch the technology sometime next year, the sources said.

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Whatever form the service takes, it would make sense for Apple to link it to Apple Pay, which already has a huge customer base across its iPhone and Apple Watch devices.

Upon its launch last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the digital wallet “an entirely new category of service” that could help make the 200 million card transactions made each day a lot easier.

Mobile payments have exploded in popularity in recent months as more and more companies embrace the technology. Most recently, Facebook launched a payments service earlier this year through its Messenger app.

The free to use service is open to Visa and Mastercard customers using iOS and Android mobile devices, with users simply clicking an option inside a Messenger chat window. Money is sent straight away, but may take between one to three days to clear depending on your bank, just like a typical deposit.

Recent research by payments specialists Skrill found that digital wallets are now used by more than half of all UK online shoppers whenever they purchase goods online.

Overall, 54 percent of UK consumers said they often or always used digital wallets such as PayPal, Google Wallet, or Square, to shop and pay.

Another recent study by analyst firm Juniper Research predicted that that the number of annual purchases made via mobiles, tablets, desktops and other connected devices should reach 125 billion annually by 2018 – 60 percent more than the total number of transactions in 2015.

All clued up on mobile payments? Try our quiz!