When is the last time you went out to a restaurant with a group of friends or colleagues, and everyone at the table pulled out cash to settle their part of the bill? If you are like most people, you’d be hard pressed to answer that question. (And if you’re under 30, the answer might be “never.”)
If you’re looking for a convenient way to pay (or get paid by) friends and family, consider using one of the popular “cash” transfer apps available today. These make sharing expenses painless and quick. Plus, there’s no longer an excuse for that one friend to conveniently “forget” to pay you back for months on end.
Venmo
Features: Despite being a relatively new app, Venmo has seen a rapid growth in popularity and use. In fact, the app has become so popular that the name itself has been turned into a verb. It’s common to hear someone saying “just Venmo me” when discussing splitting a check or expense.
Venmo’s claim to fame is that it allows users to send money to friends easily. Users are able to link up debit card (from which transfers are free) or credit card (the use of which will be subject to a 3% fee). Transfers are immediate and the payments/requests can be initiated by either party.
Money paid to you gets deposited to your Venmo account as an available balance. Payments you make are deducted first from your Venmo balance, then drawn from your linked debit or credit card.
Pros: Venmo boasts “bank-grade security.” Also, Venmo’s user interface is intuitive and easy to use.
Another aspect of Venmo which many consider to be engaging is the social aspect. Venmo has a “facebook-esque” news feed which shows you transactions between and among your friends (and the public). For privacy, the dollar amounts are hidden, but it can be interesting to see who is paying whom for what.
Cons: The social aspect of Venmo can also be a negative. For those who either don’t care to know about the payment activity of others, the feed can be a bit of an annoying distraction. For the privacy-minded, Venmo’s settings do allow sharing to be turned off. That way, no one else can see where or why you are sending money.
Payments are not made directly to your bank account, but rather get applied to your “Venmo Balance.” Users must then manually transfer funds from their Venmo balance to their bank account, and this often takes a few days for the cash from your Venmo balance to reach your bank account.
Another downside is that the app does not use your Venmo balance to cover transactions larger than your Venmo balance. For example, say you need to pay someone $60 and have $35 in your Venmo balance. There is no option for you to just pay the $25 difference from your linked debit or credit card. You must pay the whole payment from the debit or credit card, or make two separate transfers.
What Venmo says about their app:
“Pay family and friends in the US with a phone number or email, whether or not they have Venmo — all they need to do is create a Venmo account to claim their payment. Find friends automatically by syncing your Facebook or phone contacts.”
Square Cash
As with the other apps featured here, Square Cash is an app that allows users to transfer money through email, or by way of the app directly. In order to transfer money for free, users must link a debit card.
There is no charge to send, request, or receive money through the app, if you choose Personal Use at setup. If funds are sent via a credit card, however, there is a 3% processing fee (paid by the sender).
You can also refer new users to Square Cash through the Invite feature of the app. When they make their first $50 transfer, you’ll both receive a $5 bonus in your account!
Pros: Easy to use, payments post directly to bank account, Also, payments made via Square Cash tend to post very quickly, with Square Cash even boasting that many payments post within seconds.
Cons: Users looking to sign up and transfer large amounts of cash right away might be disappointed, as they impose an initial $250 maximum transfer limit per week. This limit can be raised by various means, including linking your Facebook account to Square Cash.
What Square Cash says about their app:
“Whether splitting a dinner bill with friends or paying your landlord for the month’s rent, Square Cash is the easiest way to send money. Cash is available for both personal and business use. ”
$Cashtags: A relatively new and novel feature, $Cashtags allow a Square Cash user to receive payments outside of the Square app. $Cashtags seem to have been developed primarily with businesses in mind, but individuals can make use of them as well.
Essentially, you will create a “$cashtag,” which is your own unique tag for receiving payment. Let’s use $erinhills as an example. Her $cashtag URL would then be cash.me/$erinhills.
Now, let’s say we went out to lunch this weekend. I didn’t have cash on hand to cover my portion of the bill, so Erin paid it all. I could visit the URL above, enter my credit or debit card information, and choose the amount that I would like to send. We’re settled up!
Others could utilize that same $cashtag as needed to send money, too. Her roommate could pay her portion of the rent each month, her mom could give her birthday money, and the entire office could pitch in on the joint gift she picked up for their boss. All through that same URL.
The $Cashtags aspect of Square Cash is also beneficial for those accepting donations or funding for specific causes/goals. A graduate could set up a $cashtag page for contributions to his mission trip in Kenya, a restaurant could raise money to support someone in their community, or a bride and groom could set up a honeymoon $cashtag in lieu of a wedding registry. The possibilities are endless.
The biggest downside for the person accepting funds, however, is that any money accepted through $Cashtags is subject to a 1.5% fee. Payments are transferred directly to your bank account.
Google Wallet (Android Pay)
Send and receive money via Google Wallet, using a convenient app or your desktop computer. Payments are made by linking a debit card to your Google wallet account, and money is then transferred fee-free. Google Wallet is available for both Android and iOS devices. (Note: if you have Google Wallet installed on your Android device, the app will be updated to Android Pay.)Security: Google uses a Payments PIN for accessing your Wallet. If you ever lose your phone (or it gets stolen), you can login to your Google account and remove access to your Google wallet account on that device.
Google even goes so far as to provide 24/7 fraud monitoring, and Google covers 100% of all verified unauthorized transactions.
Pros: The Google brand is well known and trusted. It’s also quite easy to send money from the app. Just use the recipient’s email address or phone number, or send directly from Gmail.
Cons: You can’t send or receive money between two countries through Google Wallet. Luckily, this should not present a problem to the majority of users.
What Google says about its app:
“Send money to anyone in the US using an email address or phone number. It’s fast, easy, and free to send directly from your debit card, bank account, or Wallet Balance. You can do all this in the Google Wallet app, or, if you’re on desktop, you can also send and request money in Gmail. When you receive money, you can quickly cash out to your bank account using your debit card, and get access to your money within minutes.”
Paypal
Paypal has long been the go-to method for making payments and sending money online. Utilized by individuals and business alike, the company has become a household name. Since introducing its web store plug-in — allowing online shops to offer quick and secure checkouts for their customers through a trusted name — you’d have a tough time finding someone who hasn’t used, or at least seen, Paypal.
Beyond online purchases, you can also use Paypal to send and receive money to friends and family, free of charge. As long as you use a bank account or Paypal balance, and choose the “Send money to friends or family” option, there is no fee for the transfer.
Pros: Well-known and trusted, the relatively easy to use site allows for storage of your shipping information, credit and debit cards, and the email addresses of others with whom you exchange money. Many companies also allow for direct linking to your Paypal account. This allows for even faster checkout (or payment acceptance) on sites such as Etsy and eBay.
Cons: Payment transfers can take a few days to process, and users have reported unusually long holds placed on funds. PayPal is also notorious for shutting down or freezing accounts if they detect any activity they deem potentially fraudulent.
What PayPal says about their service:
“Your cash and cards can rest easy. PayPal lets you send money to anyone’s email address or mobile number – whether it’s a friend, school, or family member. They can set up a PayPal account for free, and the money goes right into it. Send money across the street or internationally as fast as you can enter your secure PIN.”
Conclusion
While it’s clear that each of these apps are trying to present their forms as unique, the functions are essentially the same. The user interfaces, fees, and security features vary somewhat. Overall, there does not seem to be a clear winner among them that stands out above the rest.
At the end of the day, which app you choose to use for your digital cash transfers is likely to be determined by which app the majority of the people in your cash transferring circle are using. You may very well end up using some combination of them. If all else fails, you could always hunt down some actual dollar bills and settle up the old fashioned way.
Do you use any of the apps named here? What did you think?
The post These 4 Apps Will Make Sending Money Simple appeared first on The Dough Roller.
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