Patently Apple covered two patent applications from Apple about potential new future financial services related to Apple Pay in 2015 and 2016. The patents covered iPhone owners being able to transfer funds to their friends, family or colleagues. It 's now being reported that Apple "has recently held discussions with payments industry partners about introducing its own Venmo competitor, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. The service would allow iPhone owners to send money digitally to other iPhone owners."

A "Venmo" is a mobile payment service owned by PayPal. It allows users to transfer money between one another using a mobile phone app or web interface. It handled $7.5 billion in transactions in 2015, and nearly $3.2 billion in the first quarter of 2016.

ReCode reports today that "One source familiar with the plans told Recode they expect the company to announce the new service later this year. Another cautioned that an announcement and launch date may not yet be set.

If it happens this time, the new Apple product would compete with offerings from big U.S. banks as well as PayPal, its millennial-popular subsidiary Venmo, as well as Square Cash in the increasingly competitive world of digital money-transfers. Chase's QuickPay service processed $28 billion in transfers last year, while Venmo registered $17.6 billion in volume and is still doubling year over year."

For more on this story, check out the Recode report here. Below is a set of patent figures from our 2016 report titled "Apple Patent Shows Siri being used in an iMessage Thread to Send Funds to a Friend using Apple Pay."

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