Cash App opens up to Apple Pay and Google Pay for the first time

CNBC

29-07-2025

Cash App is going on the offensive in peer-to-peer payments.
The Block-owned payments platform on Tuesday unveiled Pools, a new peer-to-peer feature designed to make group payments simple. It's the company's first major P2P product launch in nearly two years.
"This is the first time we're going into out-of-network payments with Pools," said Owen Jennings, Block's head of business, referring to the feature's ability to accept contributions via Apple Pay or Google Pay from people who aren't on Cash App.
Pools allows users to create and manage a shared balance for group payments — whether splitting a dinner bill or collecting funds for a group trip. Contributions can be made through Cash App or via Apple Pay and Google Pay, which opens up the experience to users outside the app for the first time.
By sharing a Pool link, organizers can collect funds even from friends who don't use Cash App, making out-of-network participation easier.
The launch comes as Cash App races to regain momentum in a high-stakes rivalry with Venmo, which has been steadily growing under new leadership at PayPal.
PayPal reported its second-quarter results before the market opened Tuesday. Venmo had another knockout quarter, with revenue growing more than 20% year over year — its highest growth rate since 2023.
That followed a similarly strong first quarter where Venmo's revenue growth doubled the pace of payment volume, driven by rising adoption of debit cards, instant transfers, and online checkout. The gains were fueled by heavier use of Venmo debit cards, instant transfers, and online checkout integrations. PayPal does not break out Venmo revenue.
For Block, the debut of Pools is a strategic reset. The company posted disappointing first-quarter results in May, missing revenue expectations and admitting it had lost focus on growing Cash App's user base.
"Money is fundamentally social in nature," Jennings said.
"We want Cash App to be the financial operating system for the next generation… to essentially be the money app where a customer can run their entire financial life," added Jennings, who was previously Cash App's chief operating officer.
That includes reinvesting in the peer-to-peer features that first made the app popular, and now aiming to make them more social and accessible — functionality that's central to Cash App's broader growth strategy.
Jennings said opening up access to Apple and Google accounts is an opportunity to get more active users and bring people into the ecosystem.
The company sees each non-user who contributes to a pool as a potential convert.
"This product is fundamentally geared at network expansion and improving the virality of our peer-to-peer products," he added. "It's the foundation of Cash App — it's how Cash App started, but it's also the growth engine that fuels everything else."
Internally, the rollout represents a cultural shift at Block. The feature went from idea to launch in just a few months, driven by what Jennings described as "high velocity, high quality" development powered in part by internal AI tools like the company's open-source assistant, Goose.
"The pace of development on this and our ability to get it in customers' hands feels really different this year," Jennings said. "Especially in the past three or four months, relative to how things felt about a year ago."
He added that the shift isn't unique to Block.
"You'll probably broadly see that in the industry, where the pace of development is going to pick up as the marginal cost of a great line of code continues to fall. And this is just a great example of how we were able to move really fast."
The launch also reflects CEO Jack Dorsey's call to return Cash App to its core growth engine. On the company's first-quarter earnings call, Dorsey acknowledged the platform's recent underperformance
"I just don't think we were focused enough and had enough attention on the network and the network density, and that is our foundation," he said.
While Cash App continues to expand its banking and lending products — including its FDIC-approved Borrow program — Dorsey emphasized that the app's success still hinges on peer-to-peer engagement.
"We of course want to deepen engagement with our customers through banking services and Borrow," he said. "But at the same time, we need to make sure that we continuously grow our network, and that starts with peer-to-peer."
Pools is designed to drive organic user growth — not direct revenue.
"We're not looking at this from a profit maximization perspective," Jennings said. "This is very geared at network expansion and getting back to a place where actives are growing at a healthy clip."
The tool comes with built-in progress tracking, seamless integration with Cash App's banking tools, and the ability for organizers to set a target amount and share a link to collect contributions.
Pools is currently available to a limited set of Cash App users, with a broader rollout expected in the coming months. For Block, it's the start of what Jennings described as a new chapter — one focused on making money feel "more multiplayer."