Siri now helps you send and receive money through PayPal

PayPal is now in the midst of rolling out a much-anticipated update for its iOS client via the App Store. The upgrade introduces the facility to both send and request money using Siri for customers in 30 countries, including Australia, the UK and US.

Here’s the full list of supported regions and languages:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium (French and Dutch)
• Brazil
• Canada (English and French)
• China
• Denmark
• Finland (Finnish)
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong (Cantonese)
• India
• Israel (Hebrew)
• Italy
• Japan
• Malaysia (Malay)
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia (Arabic)
• Singapore (English)
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland (French, German,and Italian)
• Thailand
• United Kingdom
• United Arab Emirates (Arabic)
• United States

Fortunately, getting started with the new feature couldn’t be easier. Once you’ve installed the update, simply open up Siri and say something along the lines of “Send $100 to Juan using PayPal,” or “Request $20 from Abhi using PayPal for the pizza last night.”

To prevent crafty individuals from picking up your phone and using Siri to send themselves money, you’ll first have to confirm your identity before sending or requesting a payment. As you’d expect, this is done using Touch ID and takes no longer than a couple of seconds.

I’ve already had a play around with the new feature and have found it to work flawlessly. It’s worth noting, though, that the person you want to send money to needs to have an email address or phone number linked to a PayPal account. They also have to be saved in your phone’s contacts.