Apple Pay on Top of Consumer Reports’ Mobile P2P Assessment

With a focus on data privacy and security, a review of five mobile person-to-person payment services places Apple Pay at the top, Consumer Reports says.

Released Monday, the report from the product-review magazine evaluated Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo, Square Inc.’s Cash app; Facebook Inc.’s Messenger, and Early Warning Services LLC’s Zelle based on payment authentication, data security, data privacy, customer support, and broad access.

Out of a possible 100 points, Apple Pay scored 76, followed by Venmo, 69; Square Cash, 64; Messenger, 63, and Zelle (as a standalone app), at 50. Google Pay Send, the P2P payment service from Alphabet Inc.’s Google subsidiary, was not included because it was merged into Google Pay while the research was underway, Yonkers, N.Y.-based Consumer Reports says.

Nothing in its evaluation suggests any of the P2P services would threaten the security of a user’s financial and personal data, Consumer Reports says. “For instance, all the services we tested use an acceptable level of data encryption. But Venmo and Zelle got marked down because they don’t do a good job of explaining how they protect user data,” the report says.

Apple Pay and Facebook’s Messenger scored well on data privacy by offering detailed terms of service and end-user agreements that explain how they use consumer data. But Consumer Reports dinged Apple Pay because it requires later versions of specific Apple hardware and software, whereas the other services are usable across multiple platforms.