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Signal wants to replace your Venmo and Cash apps with private crypto payments
Privacy and security first thanks to crypto, but it's not a well-known coin
Signal was being really secretive about its open-source server code over the last year, and now we know why: the nonprofit has been working on a payments feature and didn't want to spill the beans ahead of the announcement. Starting now, people living in the United Kingdom can send and receive a cryptocurrency using Signal beta builds.
WhatsApp is rolling out peer-to-peer payments in India
Using the country’s Universal Payments Interface for transactions
WhatsApp has been working on a mobile payment solution in India for a long time, with the first test runs starting all the way back in 2018. After this extensive period of trials and an unrelated (attempted) launch of the feature in Brazil, the time has finally come — Facebook has announced that it's launching Payments on WhatsApp in India.
Facebook Messenger users in the United States have been able to send money to each other from within the app for quite some time, and that same functionality is now finally making its way to other territories. If you're lucky enough to live in the UK or France, the Send Money feature should be available to you soon, rolling out over the next few weeks.
The Google Wallet app hasn't seen a lot of activity in a while, but an update began rolling out late yesterday that shows that there's still quite a bit happening to the app. Version 21 brings a number of visual enhancements that make the app look a bit cleaner and not quite as formal. Under the covers, a teardown also shows that the Wallet developers are about to launch multi-person money requests for those times when everybody splits the cost, a new reminders system to keep you from forgetting to take care of business, and confirms Android Messages integration is coming soon.
Skype and PayPal have announced a new integration that allows users to transfer money to each other. The Send Money feature means you'll no longer have to leave a Skype conversation when money needs to be exchanged – paying off debts will be just a swipe away.
We've already taken a brief look at Google's new PayPal-like payment API which was introduced during a session at I/O today. Potentially the coolest application for this is going to be the ability to send payments to friends and others with Google Assistant.