Grubhub partners with Venmo on bill-splitting feature

Grubhub is upping the ante when it comes to cashless payment options for time-pressed diners, especially Millennials.

The online and mobile ordering platform used by thousands of restaurants has partnered with Venmo, a peer-to-peer payment app favored by younger diners. The integration allows restaurant customers to pay bills or split a virtual check using PayPal’s Venmo.

“Adding the ‘split the bill’ feature provides an additional level of convenience our diners have come to expect from us,” Sam Hall, chief product officer for Grubhub, said in a statement.

Chicago-based Grubhub and its portfolio of other apps, such as Eat24 and Seamless, work with more than 80,000 restaurants in 1,600 U.S. cities and London. Diners ordering from restaurants such as Burger King, Rubio’s Coastal Grill, Wienerschnitzel, Subway, Krispy Kreme and Buffalo Wild Wings can now pay using their Venmo account.

The cashless payment system can also be linked to a user’s bank account, credit card or debit card.

Grubhub said more than 60 percent of the company’s orders are placed on mobile devices, so the partnership with Venmo makes sense. The app also allows users to send a payment to other Venmo users via iMessage on iPhones with iOS 10 or later.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017, Venmo processed $10.4 billion in payments, an increase of 86 percent year over year. Peer-to-peer payment users are projected to grow to 126 million by 2020, from 53 million in 2014, according to Statista.

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