Siri can now send money to 30 countries with PayPal
If you have the PayPal app installed, you can say "Hey Siri, send Nathan $20 using PayPal," and it will transfer the money. You can also use Touch ID to verify before sending, if you have a password set.
This move is part of PayPal's goal to make person-to-person money transfer as easy as possible on smartphones, Meron Colbeci, a senior director at PayPal, told Business Insider.
The company is betting big that people will move away from cash when paying each other back, particularly at times they are on the go, with easy access to smartphones. Besides its eponymous service, PayPal bought millennial favorite payments app Venmo in 2013 (along with parent company Braintree for $800 million). Venmo has its own Siri integration, though Venmo doesn't work internationally.
PayPal's Siri integration was spurred by Apple's iOS 10 operating system, which opened up Siri to third-party developers. PayPal is also evaluating jumping onto iMessage, to let people send money via messages on iPhones.
These changes, or potential ones, continue PayPal's push toward mobile, where it saw a 56% increase year-over-year in Q3 2016 - its fastest area.
Here is a list of countries and languages the new feature (and PayPal app) will work in:
Australia, Austria, Belgium (French and Dutch), Brazil, Canada (English and French), China, Denmark, Finland (Finnish), France, Germany, Hong Kong (Cantonese), India,Israel (Hebrew), Italy, Japan, Malaysia (Malay), Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,Russia, Saudi Arabia (Arabic), Singapore (English), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (French, German,and Italian), Thailand, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates (Arabic) and United States.