Venmo Puts Pause On Instant Transfers

Venmo abruptly removed its instant money transfer feature on Wednesday, saying it needed to “make a few changes” to the service.

According to The Verge, the ability to instantly transfer money to the bank account linked to a debit card was a convenient feature, with money sometimes showing up in a user’s checking account within seconds — all for a fee of just 25 cents.

But Venmo pulled the feature on Wednesday, saying that it needed to make “a few changes.” By Thursday evening, instant transfers were restored for some users — it’s unknown when the feature will be be back for everyone.

Venmo’s traditional, next business day bank transfer option is still available for all.

Launched in January, Instant Transfer promised delivery of funds within 30 minutes, even on holidays and weekends. For now, the service will only work with Visa and Mastercard debit cards. Users who don’t want to pay the $0.25 can still wait one to three days for their payments to process.

Venmo was acquired by Paypal in 2014. Last year the company began to allow shoppers to use their Venmo accounts to shop at 2 million-plus U.S. retailers that accept PayPal.

“This is something we have had in mind for many years,” PayPal COO Bill Ready told Karen Webster at the time.

Ready also explained that the company’s partnerships with Visa and Mastercard marked the beginning of PayPal’s shift from being perceived as a payments ecosystem adversary to an ecosystem enabler in digital banking and money transfers.

“Over the course of the last year, we haven’t just reframed the way we are working with Visa and Mastercard, but also how we are working with the entire banking ecosystem,” Ready told Webster. “We aspire to be one of the best ways for issuers to engage their customers and drive engagement and revenue for them and for the ecosystem.”