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Comment by n2d4 | Hacker News Reader

In what sense did CashApp not pan out? $16b revenue. Too early to say whether Afterpay will work out but looking good so far

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CashApp was launched in 2013, long before Zelle and other instant payment rails arrived, which closed wallet providers solved for (Venmo too, owned by...Paypal). There is little growth to be had when these customers can get free deposit accounts with access to Zelle or FedNow to move value for free instantly. It's success to be sure to accumulate the cashflow from the customer base built, but it isn't lasting.

It also solves an exclusively American problem. In my country anyone can send money bank to bank, no need for a separate service.

Absolutely, most of this is private corporate duct tape over a lack of Pix (Brazil), UPI (India), Instant SEPA (Europe), etc [1]. “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” [2] In a US financial services market, Venmo and CashApp are unnecessary assuming you procure a deposit account from a bank or credit union with instant payment rails access [3] [4]. Even Schwab has access to Zelle, for example. You need not extend credit and have credit risk exposure for paper checks anymore as well as an issuer of a deposit account.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_payment

[2] (widely attributed to Winston Churchill)

[3] https://enroll.zellepay.com/

[4] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/organi...

Zelle has a transfer limit of $1000 per day and has a bad user interface.

Transfer limits are selected by each network participant [1], based on their risk tolerance. Four years ago Zelle was moving half a trillion dollars (~$490B) a year, 1/4th of total credit card volume [2]. I’ll come back with 2025 numbers when time permits. Zelle is baked into each financial institution’s app, there is no stand alone app anymore (as of March 2025) [3]. If you don’t like the UX, switch banks or credit unions, they’re mostly interchangeable. There are thousands to pick from.

I move thousands of dollars a month with Zelle, so I know it’s possible. My credit union allows me $3k/day, $8k/month. Chase Bank had similar limits before I left them.

[1] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/zelle-limits-at-top-banks/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32512052

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43552030

Thanks! I will request my bank to increase my limit.

Nitpick: Credit Card volume is on the order of 4-5 trillion (depending on source) in the US. Add in debit and prepaid cards on card payment rails and it is around 10 trillion.

Appreciate recent numbers. FedNow (us instant payments) has not been around long, growth will take time. My point was you don’t need Venmo or CashApp, almost any bank or credit union will do today and the volume is substantial.

I expect it to take at least 5-10 years for instant payments to replace Zelle, credit, and debit cards in the US.

Brazil’s Pix is Coming for the Card Industry - https://paymentscmi.com/insights/brazil-pix-impacts-card-ind...

> Brazil’s card industry seems to have already come to terms with the loss of market share to Pix. For 2024, Abecs sees the debit card “moving sideways,” growing only between 0.4% and 0.7% compared to the previous year. This trend is consistent globally: Visa earnings reports reveal that its debit volume has been in monthly decline since February 2024.

> The numbers around Brazil’s RTP [Pix] are indeed superlative. Central Bank data shows that over 40% of all payments in the country are currently made through Pix. The system is used by more than 90 percent of the adult population, has over 15 million businesses and moves 20% of the country’s total transactional volume.

> As it gains new features, Pix will continue to cut into banks’ interchange revenues and compete with the card industry, not only in terms of ‘stealing’ transactions from these legacy players but by allowing a new stack of solutions to be built on top of its scheme. What the Brazilian Central Bank created is a new payment rail that allows for fewer intermediaries and, therefore, for cheaper solutions.

> Even Schwab has access to Zelle

Schwab's accounts are backed by Chase. Zelle comes along for the ride.

It's a US only problem.

Everywhere else has instant settlement payment rails available for yonks.

And FedNow removes the need for Zelle or CashApp, assuming the banks offer it.

Of course, a regulator working for the consumers might mandate as part of a banking deposit taking license, that the bank must offer FedNow as part of the account at zero transaction cost to the account holder, perhaps with transaction limits.

Updated to two tricks. And you could argue three if you call banking its own trick. Afterpay was an acquisition (and much smaller) so IDK if that counts.

Still, all the bitcoin stuff, music, other side ventures, most of the international expansion, attempts to appeal to bigger businesses, the recent "focus local" vision, all hardly made a dent in the respective markets and I wouldn't be surprised if they lost money or are still losing money on most of those things.

Afterpay (and the other Buy Now Pay Later competitors like Klarna) are potential financial arrangement facilitators for their customers.

Sure the BNPL model uses effectively invoice factoring with high interest penalties but they do have a financial relationship with both vendors and buyers.

There's a lot to leverage there. It's Paypal with lending attached.

> $16b revenue

I can make a lot of revenue selling $100 bills for $10. I'm not sure it'd "pan out".

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