The concept of money in today’s world has changed. Digital money is the driving force with several e-wallets available which people can use to save, make purchases, receive, and transfer money to others.
People are embracing these innovations because of the convenience they provide. You can stay at home, work, or anywhere and make money transactions which get executed instantly. In this article, we look at one popular digital money service, Venmo, and a review of their services.
What is Venmo?
Venmo is a platform for sending and making purchases. The platform is owned by PayPal (the number 1 e-wallet service in the world) and was founded in 2009. It is available as a mobile app for Android and iOS. It can also be accessed from the web via a browser. The app is used to make payments to merchants and service providers who are approved, both online and offline. However, Venmo is majorly used for informal money transfers as major businesses opt for the parent platform – PayPal.
Venmo Services
⦁ Deposits and Withdrawals
Venmo allows deposit via different channels. You can deposit money into your Venmo account using a wire transfer from your bank or with a debit/credit card. For withdrawals, Venmo supports withdrawals directly to bank accounts.
⦁ Payments and Transfers
With Venmo, you can make payments to anyone just by knowing their ID. You could pay for purchases on sites that feature the service or transfer money to friends and families. From the app, you can track all your payments as every transaction you make is recorded in your feed. The feed is separated by tabs for you to sort payments you make and those you receive from others.
⦁ Card
Venmo partners with MasterCard to issue users a debit card. This can be used on any shopping site, ATM, etc where MasterCard is supported. It is easy to request for this card from your account dashboard and no fee is charged for it. You’ll only be required to provide personal details like name, address, date of birth, etc for identification.
⦁ Fees
Venmo is a free platform and charges no monthly fees. Also, no fee is charged when you use Venmo to make purchases or when you use an in-network ATM to make withdrawals. However, you’ll be charged $2.50 if you use an out-of-network ATM irrespective of the transfer fee. Other fees charged by Venmo includes the electronic withdrawal fee which is 1% at max with a $0.25 minimum, and money transfer fee which is 3% at max.
⦁ Integration
Venmo integrates seamlessly with Braintree – an online payment solution. Braintree is used by several top merchants such as Uber, GrubHub, Eastbay, Poshmark, Delivery, etc. Hence if you make use of any of these services, you can pay for them easily with your Venmo account.
Bottom Line
At the moment, Venmo is not available in Nigeria. The money transfer platform is not available in any other country except for America. So, to use Venmo in Nigeria, you might need to get a US VPN and US phone number for registration.