Venmo is one of those apps with an interesting start. For starters, the app allows people to pay and receive payment to and from one another. When the app first came out many people loved the idea, signed up, and began paying their friends immediately. I’ll admit, I was an early adopter and it was so nice to finally have an alternative to cash when trying to split a check at a restaurant.
However, not everyone embraced Venmo at first. I still remember reading several online articles about the dangers of using Venmo as it could make you vulnerable to identify theft. Ahh, the days before the Equifax breach!
Anyway, over the years Venmo was acquired by Braintree and eventually by PayPall. With each acquisition cane increased consumer trust. Today, Venmo is one of the top 30 apps in the Apple app store and a favorite among many. Venmo is now a part of everyday life and I personally love the service.
Until now though Venmo has been just that, an app. Now however Venmo is moving offline and into the business of physical debit cards. Essentially, you could now, in theory, use Venmo as your checking account.
Venmo Introduces Physical Debit Cards
A few days ago I received an email from Venmo which announced the introduction of physical debit cards. It was one of those emails that I quickly read, closed, and moved on. A few moments later it hit me what a big deal this actually is! The idea of a virtual app moving to a physical card is monumental.
The email was fairly straightforward and began as follows.
After a very brief message which informed the reader that “Venmo cards are here” the email featured a bright blue vertical Venmo debit card. Below the card was a bit more information about what you can do with the card and how it works.
Below the description of the card the email included a link to begin the process of getting a Venmo card. Unfortunately, the link only worked on Mobile as you can currently only get the card from the Venmo app. I tried clicking the “Get Started” button on my laptop and was directed to the following page.
The “Get Started” page instructed me to open the app to “get in line” for the card. So, at that point I closed my laptop and tried to find my phone to investigate further. Just kidding, my phone was within inches of my hand and easy to find.
Applying For The Venmo Debit Card
Once I grabbed my phone and fired up the Venmo app I found the following pane on the left side of the app.
About halfway down the Venmo menu is now an option for “Venmo Card.” I then clicked that button and found myself on the following page.
Again, this rather brightly colored page gave a brief overview of the Venmo MasterCard. At the bottom of this page I again found a button to “Get The Venmo Card.” After clicking the above button I arrived at another page which allowed me to pick the color of my new card; fancy.
On this page you can pick between white, yellow, pink, blue, green, or black as your card’s color. I of course opted for bright pink as I can’t think of any other cards that come in pink. Next, I had to verify some personal information in the Venmo app.
The first page simply asked for my first and last name. The next page however asked for the last 4 digits of my social, my date of birth, and asked me if I was comfortable signing my life away.
Well, the application actually only asked me to verify that I had in fact read the Venmo MasterCard Cardholder Agreement and Bancorp Bank’s Privacy Policy. As I had read neither I opted to not check the box and skipped opening the card for now.
Final Thoughts
Overall I’m excited by this move to introduce a physical debit card. Most young adults and college students use Venmo as the primary way to pay friends and family. Until now the only way to convert received funds to cold hard cash was to deposit into a checking account and withdraw from an ATM. Now however users can withdraw cash directly from a MoneyPass ATM for free or from any other ATM with a fee. Now that Venmo offers debit cards I’m beginning to wonder why anyone would sign up for a traditional checking account.
Further, Venmo continues to partner with merchants that will soon accept Venmo transactions as payment. That change coupled with a debit card could make Venmo a viable checking account replacement in the future. Even better, you can fund you Venmo account with a credit card (for a fee) which could make it fairly easy to earn a credit card sign-up bonus.
Personally, I am not going to be getting a Venmo debit card. It just doesn’t make sense for me at the moment. Anytime I swipe a card I use a credit card. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had to use a debit card for anything besides withdrawing cash and that is becoming increasingly rare for me.
