The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2014
Keeping up with the “tech savvy” can be exhausting; having a smartphone alone does not qualify! You must keep up with the constant barrage of apps and app updates for your device if you are to aspire to such a prestigious title.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article comparing four popular money exchange apps. If someone was to say to you, “Just Venmo me,” (and apparently this is common jargon to the tech savvy) would you be clueless? You may be, prior to reading this piece – and that’s okay.
Though you may be familiar with PayPal and use it frequently for retail transactions and donations, it may not have occurred to you to use it to pay back a friend or family member to whom you owe money. You may even be old school enough to pull out your check book. Venmo, Square Cash, Google Wallet (is there anything Google hasn’t infiltrated??), and yes, PayPal all allow you to simply and securely make loan repayments.
Secure? With news of the recent Heartbleed bug and Target breach, it may seem as though there would be issues with electronic payments like these, but apparently this method beats your checkbook for security any day. All four of the companies The Wall Street Journal featured comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are among this group as well) and also have round-the-clock fraud and risk protection teams. The chart to the right may help you decide the best fit for you.
So if you’ve loaned money to a friend or family member (we could go on about the potential pitfalls of such an arrangement, but we’ll refrain), ask them to Venmo you (or PayPal you, etc.) and impress them with your technical prowess!