Uber and Uber Eats now let you split the bill using Venmo | Social

Uber already lets riders pay by credit card, PayPal, and — in some markets — cash. Now, the ride-hailing giant is adding venmo to the mix, both in its main transport app and in the Uber eats app.

Available only in the U.S., Venmo is PayPal's popular peer-to-peer (P2P) payments app and lets you easily split and share purchases with friends — ideal for sharing transport services and ordering takeout.

A key factor in this latest partnership appears to be data suggesting Venmo was already a popular mechanism for sharing payments between multiple Uber riders. Someone would pay for an Uber ride through their account, as usual, and then request reimbursement from their friends through Venmo. According to the company, more than 6 million Venmo payments last year mentioned the word “Uber,” which offers some indication as to how popular this new payment integration should prove.

“With so many of our riders and eaters already turning to Venmo as a way to pay a friend back for that last ride or meal, we're proud to have built a seamless, easy-to-use connection between our apps,” said Uber payment partnerships head Marco Mahrus.

Splitting fares

It is worth noting here that Uber has offered a built-in fare-splitting feature for a while already, but it required all parties involved to have an active Uber account. Integrating Venmo bypasses that requirement, though all riders would have to be active Venmo users, of course.

Integrating Venmo could also be convenient for anyone who uses the service to pay for goods digitally, regardless of whether they're splitting a purchase with friends. If nothing else, you might be interested to know that Uber is the first company to get its very own branded emoji in the Venmo app to denote Uber or Uber Eats payments.

Above: Splitting fares

“Adding Venmo as a way to pay within Uber and Uber Eats furthers our mission to provide a seamless way to pay for the services that matter most to our customers,” added PayPal chief operating officer Bill Ready.

Uber will be rolling out the Venmo integrations “in the coming weeks,” according to a statement.