Apple is working on a payment system for users among themselves

Apple is expanding its Apple Pay system to allow payments between users, including from bank accounts instead of credit cards. The company has entered into talks with major American banks for this, sources from The Wall Street Journal report.

At the moment it is only possible to make payments with Apple Pay at the cash register. The idea behind the expansion is that users can then more easily arrange their mutual transactions, such as splitting an account or borrowing and repaying money. Now Apple Pay only works with credit and debit cards.

With this move, Apple is competing with existing payment services from companies such as Google, Facebook and PayPal. Google has the functionality in Google Wallet, where users can e-mail a link to each other with which the mutual payment can be made. Facebook uses its Messenger service to transfer money between users. Finally, PayPal has developed the Venmo app for this.

It is not yet clear what the implementation of Apple’s new branch of its payment system will look like. What is certain is that in July this year, Apple obtained a patent for a system that “uses wirelessly communicating electronic devices to make person-to-person payments.” Those electronic devices are probably just iPhones. Communication goes via NFC and authentication probably goes with Touch ID, as is now also the case with Apple Pay.

The sources state that the service also differs from Apple Pay in that the banks do not have to pay per transaction, which is now the case with Apple Pay. The Wall Street Journal sources say the new service could see the light of day in the US as early as 2016.