I keep seeing this everywhere – “Venmo me”, “I’ll send it to your Venmo” etc – so I dutifully Googled Venmo and found that it’s a PayPal-type money transfer system.
But why does everyone have one?
Does Venmo have any advantage over its competitors?
More generally, are inter-bank transfers just not possible, or cost too much?
17 comments
Venmo is very easy to use and has the most name recognition.
I think Zelle is owned at least in part by some banks and let’s you inter-bank transfer for free but I only know one person who uses it.
Bank to bank was clunky. Venmo made it simple.
Simple as that.
Similar question, yet reversed in direction why do you use likely us WhatsApp instead of what is built in with your phone service?
(the answer is also similar)
Bank transfers are through Zelle, some people use that. I don’t know why Venmo is popular except that it has PayPal behind it and people use it because other people use it. As far as major daily use apps it’s poorly designed and gets worse each iteration, and the “social” aspects are awful, turn those off.
Venmo is convenient, instantaneous, and fairly straightforward.
> More generally, are inter-bank transfers just not possible, or cost too much?
No, venmo is just that much simpler.
Zelle was at one point integrated into the Chase app. Now it’s just separate. And I believe it was developed by multiple banks.
I cant really speak to the advantages over competitors but I can confirm that inter-bank transfers not only cost a few bucks usually but they also take 3 business days whereas venmo doesn’t. It’s also a nice easy way to pay someone for work they’ve done for you or for something you’ve bought from them if its more than a few hundred. Between that and people being less likely to carry cash or at least lots of cash these days I think it was only a matter of time before we all sort of convened on one sort of main money service app.
In the college aged crowd, many people don’t just carry around a lot of cash, and as such, electronic transfers really make it easy to split costs for restaurants/utilities or other incidentals.
Venmo is free to use whereas a wire transfer from my bank costs $30 to send and $15 to receive.
At the time I started using venmo it replaced writing someone a check to repay or bringing them cash next time we got together as bank to bank transfers weren’t common. Zelle I use because it’s the free service tied into my bank account. Some family now uses chase quickpay as well. For a more scientific answer i’d say first mover advantage is why venmo is most popular.
It’s just an alternative to money transfers from your bank. It’s popular most like because it’s owned by PayPal who has the money to promote it.
>are inter-bank transfers just not possible, or cost too much?
Most major banks will have free instant bank transfers via Zelle (a payment processing service that is integrated with banks). Even other banks who don’t have Zelle will be able to do bank transfers.
3rd party apps are popular because they usually offer other incentives like cashback, stock options, simpler transfers (it’s already simple though), etc. People just like to use other options.
I didn’t use Venmo until everyone else used it and I didn’t have much choice. I’m found out that it’s easy as hell to use, and setting up the payment and withdrawal took next to no time. Been using it a lot lately.
It’s just a popular way of sending money.
There’s no real advantages over Zelle or Cash App other than most people have it.
For all intents and purposes, Venmo is a bank transfer.
Here in the US, our bank account numbers are considered sensitive information so we don’t just hand them out like candy, even to people we know.
Even if we did, no one is going to be able to remember a series of numbers. The apps make it easy to send via usernames, phone numbers, and email addresses. All of which are already on our phones.
Venmo also has some social-media like features which makes it a bit more “fun” to use, and you can even pay some businesses with it too. So its versatile.
Venmo is one of many ways. It’s just super easy to implement and the transfer is instant. I prefer other services.
Every bank is its own entity and has its own infrastructure for direct transfers. Instead of navigating hundreds of banks’ infrastructures, you can simply use an app.
Because it’s great? I also use Zelle
Zelle is for bank to bank but I use Venmo bc it’s just easier
I’ve never used it, don’t plan to.
I think when Venmo first came out the bank to bank transfers weren’t as easy as they are now, I will admit the US was behind on this. Now Zelle is integrated into most bank apps so it’s much easier.