Have you ever used a direct payment app? If so you may know how tricky some of them can be. First up Venmo. I hate Venmo. I’ve tried to make a Venmo account like 10 times and it’s never worked. I can’t make an account because it is so confusing. And then also my mom made an account on my number, so I couldn’t make one,

and then without knowing I logged into her Venmo account. And that was a whole ordeal because it didn’t have her name on it. It just had my phone number. 

“Venmo is kind of like it is a little difficult to use. I will say that and I will say that I’ve been mostly a hot minute to get set up because it proved through so many different things,” Smith said. 

Junior at SEMO, Noelle Gratzer finds that Venmo is the best personal payment app for many reasons.

“Venmo is my favorite payment method because it’s very convenient, I work as a nanny 

over the summer and get all of my paychecks through venmo,” Gratzer said.

Zelle is definitely my favorite for many reasons. it goes straight to your bank; you don’t have to deposit it. The money gets sent directly to your bank account and is available immediately. And it doesn’t take any money–there are zero fees when using Zelle. One con about Zelle is the fact that it has to be through a certain bank. But the majority of the people that I know or need to send money to use a bank that has Zelle, including Hannah Rodin. 

“Zelle is much better than other apps because you can transfer money straight from and straight to your account unlike venmo which has a fee to transfer into your account immediately or you have to wait 3-5 business days for your money,” Rodin said.

I recently downloaded a Cash App for a purchase. It was super easy to set up. All I had to do was put in my card number. Cash App is also a good option because when transferring it over to Bitcoin, you don’t lose any. But when you transfer them over from Venmo to Bitcoin, you lose around half of the money. Another good thing about Cash App is cash out, you can do investments through the app. I know people who do investments use Cash App, and it has a wildly large base where it kind of acts as if it’s like a bank account. You can store money in there, like a savings account, and you have access to that. You can do investments through it. Cash App is actually very, very much more involved with the whole money transferring everything type of area. The Cash App is clean. 

A new addition to the direct payment game is something called Apple Cash. It’s not as user friendly as you might think since it’s connected to your phone, as Gabby Verment found.

“Apple cash does not work for me. I’ve never been able to do it,” Gabby Verment said.

So that leaves us with Pay Pal Who uses PayPal? PayPal is definitely more popular within Gen-X and millennials. It’s been pushed off its pedestal by other apps such as Venmo. Not knowing much about PayPal I decided to talk to Dianna Smith, a  Master Card employee, to get more information on PayPal.

“It’s a personal payment platform. I would rate it high. I like it because I don’t have to use my debit card. And when you use your debit card, if it gets hacked, then people have access to all the money in your checking account or your savings if that’s connected to your debit whereas your credit card they don’t have access to that and your credit card company will there’s what’s called zero liability,” Smith said. “So it’s a brand promise through like MasterCard and Visa has it as well that means that if fraud happens on your credit card then they will cover it for you and you won’t be held liable for it or you will be responsible for it.”

Personal payment apps have a lesser chance of getting your information stolen. Not only are these apps safer to use than just a plain old debit card, but it’s more convenient. Before these apps were created, in order to give someone money you would either have to write them a check or give them cash. Nowadays practically no one in the younger generations even knows how to write a check let alone carry around a checkbook. Traditional payment methods like checks or bank transfers can take several days to process while you can send money directly to someone’s account with the push of a button using personal payment apps. 

Personal payment can also be used for more than just sending money to others. People can make online purchases, start investments, bill payments, and charitable donations. Some apps even offer additional features like splitting bills, setting spending limits, or linking loyalty programs. Overall, personal payment apps have proven to be easy, safe, and convenient.