People are always looking for more convenient ways to send and receive money. We researched various apps that help you in this regard. Don’t worry about going to each website, we summarized the major pros and cons here.
4 Popular Apps to Send and Receive Money
PayPal – Buying on eBay comes to mind when people think of the word PayPal, but it also allows you to send and receive money.
There are no fees to:
- Send money from your PayPal balance or bank account.
- Purchase goods using PayPal.
- Transfer money from your PayPal balance to your bank account.
There are fees to:
- Receive money via debit or credit cards. Per PayPal’s site, its fees are 2.9% + $0.30 for these types of transactions. That works out to $6.40 in fees on a $200 transfer.
- Get transfers from outside of the U.S. (3.9%+.30 for payments under $3K) (https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_display-xborder-fees-outside).
- Have your PayPal balance sent to you in the form of a check. The check fee is $1.50. Translation avoid it if at all possible.
Google Wallet – Unsurprisingly, Google got in the business of sending and receiving money. Here are the important facts.
- You can send money from and receive it to your bank account at no fee.
- It is also free to send money from your Wallet balance.
- The charge to use a credit card is 2.9%.
Being part of Google, it has other benefits.
- You can send money to anyone with a gmail account.
- If you purchased anything from Google Play, you already have a wallet. No fiddling around with the set up process.
Venmo – Venmo advertises itself as a digital wallet to help you with everyday situations like when you split a restaurant bill with someone and that person needs to pay you back. If you transfer money from your Venmo account to a friend’s Venmo, it happens immediately.
It is always free to receive money on Venmo. There are no fees when you pay with your Venmo balance, bank account, or what Venmo describes as a major debit card. Venmo charges fees of 3% for using it to pay via credit card or non-major debit card. Many of my friends use Venmo primarily instead of PayPal, but I haven’t found a reason why it’s better, yet. The only reason they’ve been able to give about why it’s better is that there is no sign-in process on your phone. To me, that sounds like a vulnerability, but I suppose to some it’s a feature.
Facebook Messenger App – Facebook’s messenger app allows you to send and receive money, and the best part is that it is free. The only downside appears to be that you can only connect a Visa or MasterCard debit card (and this is a major downside for me).
Other Apps
There are two less well known apps that are worth checking out. Dwolla offers transfers with a low .25 fee charged to the recipient. Keep in mind, you cannot use credit or debit cards with Dwolla (https://www.dwolla.com/about). Square Cash is another app that allows you to send money to another Square Cash user free (https://www.bankrate.com/finance/banking/money-transfer-app.aspx).
A Different Type of Risk
Even today, people have to worry about losing cash or misplacing a paper check. Mobile apps have their own risks (i.e. hackers). Make sure you are comfortable with the security policy before signing up with one of these provider. We all work hard for our money so stay safe.
