No more dodging your IOUs: Gmail lets you send money on Android now
Sending money to your friends just got a whole lot easier.
Gmail is bringing the ability to send and receive money as an email attachment to your Android phone via Google Wallet, the company announced on Tuesday. This feature is already available on Gmail's web version, but bringing it to mobile means you can have one less app on your phone -- no need for Venmo anymore.
Sending money is as simple as adding an attachment to your email, and there are no fees. You can send money to any user, meaning they don't need to have a Gmail address.
Recipients can receive money directly in the app, and choose to receive the money via their debit card or bank account.
Sure, there are a lot of payment apps out there already -- think Square Cash, Venmo and PayPal -- but they're only good if your friends are open to using them. Gmail itself has over a billion users.
Going forward, it's likely Google's biggest competitor in this space could be Facebook Messenger's payments feature. Messenger has a sizable platform, comparable to that of Gmail, and it has a head start on Google when it comes to mobile payments.
The feature is currently U.S.-only, and should be available on your Gmail app soon.
Freia Lobo wrote about Tech News for Mashable in NYC. You can follow her on twitter at @freialobo
