PayPal’s Venmo Service Moves Beyond Beta

PayPal’s Venmo mobile payments app is now compatible with a number additional merchants, and is available to all users.

Venmo isn’t an mPayment service along the lines of Apple Pay or Samsung Pay—it doesn’t facilitate in-store payments at POS terminals, but rather enables peer-to-peer payments and digital payments in participating merchant apps, much like PayPal payments on websites. The latter service has now moved beyond its limited beta phase, and supports a dozen merchant apps in total: Boxed, delivery.com, Dolly, Gametime, Hop Market, Munchery, Parking Panda, Poshmarket, Priv, Urgentli, and Wish.

The expansion is the product of a new alliance between PayPal and Visa, with the companies now cooperating in the digital payments space. The partnership has also enabled PayPal mPayments at contactless payment terminals via the PayPal digital wallet, with PayPal agreeing in turn to offer more support for Visa in its online payment services.

Announcing the new merchant support for Venmo on its website, PayPal promises, “This is just the beginning.” As the mobile payments market continues to heat up and PayPal’s collaboration with Visa deepens, it should be interesting to see what further developments await.