Apple is planning to enter peer-to-peer payment market

Apple is planning to make sure its iPhone users to continue using the company's latest payment service, Apple Wallet through the use of peer-to-peer payment service.

Currently, Apple is in the development stage of the new service which is similar like Venmo and its executive is in discussion stage with banks.

Through this new services, iPhone users can send payment to other iPhone users directly simply using the messaging services according to The New York Times.

The app is expected to be launched by next year if all the discussion went through. Apple was reported to have patented the technology behind the payment system too.

Previously, Apple introduced Apple Pay on October 2014 allowing iPhone users to pay for their groceries and other products at any store just by using the iPhone. The company then expanded its capabilities by partnering with Passbook which is renamed into Wallet.

The app allows users to store digital ticket and boarding pass for the airline ticket that they bought using the iPhone.

According to Apple spokesperson, the company is planning to tap into the emerging market of P2P payment as there are only a few companies running the business at the moment.

As reported by VentureBeat, among the companies involve in the P2P payment are Google, Facebook, Square and PayPal.

Currently, PayPal via its app known as Venmo is the dominating the market share. PayPal reported that $2.1 billion transactions were done via Venmo by the end of third quarter 2015 alone.

Apple Pay, on the other hand, is falling behind with its users as a research by Deloitte shows that only 16.6 percent of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus users have been using the payment system by the end of third quarter this year.

According to the report, most people did not use the payment system either because they forgot or some customer prefer to use the card rather than phone.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is partnering with American Express Co. to bring the Apple Pay system to more countries including Canada and Australia. However, banks that involve with the proposed partnership still undecided to go through with the app or not.

According to a source with people familiar with the Apple P2P system, Apple will not charge the bank participating in the payment system which is different compared to Apple Pay.

There is also a possibility that Apple will hook its system to an already established payment services in order to speed up its P2P system. One system rumoured to be used is the clearXchange.