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Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

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Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

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Jeff Bezos wants the bottom half of earners to pay zero income tax—he says nurses making just $75K should save $12K a year
Finance

Paying during a pandemic: Venmo, PayPal, and other money transfer apps are surging

Jeff John Roberts
By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
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Jeff John Roberts
By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 20, 2020, 3:00 PM ET

A new study of payment habits during the pandemic reveals a surprising trend: Even as lockdowns forced businesses to shut and consumers to stay home, use of peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo has surged.

According to findings by Apptopia, which studies app usage, the use of the most popular money transfer apps has risen by nearly 11% since March 1.

According to Adam Blacker, a VP at Apptopia, the number of U.S. downloads for Venmo grew 16.5% and those for Square’s Cash App grew 20.1% from April to May. Meanwhile, PayPal downloads soared 32.3% during this period.

In raw numbers, Cash App was the most popular with nearly 4 million new downloads, while Venmo and PayPal respectively saw around 2.5 million and 2 million downloads.

Activity on all three apps also climbed with Venmo posting over 600 million sessions—a rough proxy for transactions—in April. Cash App had the next most usage, with around 250 million sessions, followed by PayPal, which had just under 200 million sessions.

Other apps included in Apptopia’s survey, including Zelle and cross-border money transfer service TransferWise, all recorded similar uptakes in usage.

Apptopia’s research did not delve into why the use of payment apps surged during a period of huge economic decline. But Blacker speculates that, in the case of PayPal, an increase in e-commerce during the lockdown helped fuel the growth. As for the spike in Venmo and Cash App usage, he suspects that it was driven in part by consumers wishing to avoid in-person banking, and by people sending money to family and friends affected by the pandemic’s economic fallout.

More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:

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  • These stocks have been weakened by the coronavirus pandemic—and activist investors could soon pounce
  • The government’s mortgage forbearance policies exclude 61% of Americans
  • Why satellite communications company Intelsat filed for bankruptcy
  • WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of the coronavirus
About the Author
Jeff John Roberts
By Jeff John RobertsEditor, Finance and Crypto
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Jeff John Roberts is the Finance and Crypto editor at Fortune, overseeing coverage of the blockchain and how technology is changing finance.

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