PayPal CEO Dan Schulman played-down the impact of Apple’s entry into the person-to-person (P2P) mobile payment space, highlighting the greater scope offered by its Venmo platform.

In an interview with UK newspaper The Telegraph, Schulman (pictured) said Apple did not have access to the same end-to-end payment infrastructure as PayPal, limiting it to providing a “good user interface”.

He also pointed to Apple’s service being restricted to use on its own devices.

PayPal-owned Venmo is widely considered the US market leader in so-called “social payments”, which allow instant cash transfers to be made between contacts through chat platforms.

It is marketed for use cases such as splitting the bill in restaurants and is generally used for low-value cash transfer without the risk of exchanging bank details.

In the quarter ended 31 March 2017, Venmo recorded a year-on-year increase in transaction value of 113 per cent as $6.8 billion passed through its platform.

During the first week of June, Apple announced the new version of its iOS operating system for smartphones, tablets and wearables would include an upgrade to Apple Pay to enable P2P payments.

PayPal’s P2P market share is also being targeted by some of the largest banks in the US, which last week announced the launch of Zelle – a cross-bank money transfer platform with standalone app set for release later in 2017.