14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has internally started testing the so-called Apple Pay Cash, a service that the company first announced at WWDC earlier this year, but which still doesn’t have an ETA.
Basically, with Apple Pay Cash iPhone users would be allowed to make person-to-person payments via iMessage similar to the likes of Square Cash and Venmo.
Apple promised to make Pay Cash available without any fee for debit cards, but with a 3 percent fee for credit cards, allowing users who receive the payment cards on iMessage to either transfer the funds to their bank accounts or use them with Apple Pay for other purchases or directly in retail stores.
Even though Cupertino hasn’t said a thing about the release date, it was originally believed that the end of the year was the most likely target. And according to MacRumors, Apple appears to be sticking with this ETA, with the company currently running internal tests to determine whether Apple Pay Cash can be released to everyone in the next couple of months.
Coming in future iOS update
Since Apple’s announcement was made in the summer at WWDC, most people expected the new payment system to make its way to users with the release of iOS 11, but the feature was not included in the new operating system.
iOS 11.1 beta, which is currently available for developers as part of the beta program, lacks this feature as well, and there’s a chance that Apple won’t include it until the very last moment to make sure that everything is working correctly.
Screenshots showing an early version of Pay Cash confirm that some tests are being conducted by Apple engineers, though one of the photos points to an error that one user gets when not having the service configured on his device.
More information on Apple Pay Cash is likely to surface in the coming weeks, especially because Apple is expected to speed up work on this feature to meet the original target date for the release.