Ranking
Safest Payment and Money Transfer Apps 2026
Every app we cover whose main job is paying people or shops, from PayPal, Venmo, Cash App and Zelle in the US to India's UPI apps such as PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm and BHIM, plus the phone wallets Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet, Vipps and MobilePay in the Nordic countries, South Korea's Kakao Pay and China's Alipay. Each score weighs what the app collects and shares, how well it guards your account and payments, the controls it gives you, how it handles scams and fraud, and its record with regulators.
Updated · Scores update with each page
The ranking
Payments and money
Apple Wallet and Apple Pay
Apple Pay is one of the safest ways to pay. Merchants never get your card number, the payment key sits in a separate chip, and Apple keeps no card transaction record tied to you. A $25 million CFPB penalty over Apple Card disputes filed in Wallet holds the score back.
Score 75, grade BPayments and money
Vipps MobilePay
Vipps in Norway and MobilePay in Denmark and Finland are well-run payment apps with no ad tracking on their App Store labels and no privacy fines we could find. The real risk is scammers who persuade you to send money yourself, though Vipps says its fraud model now stops most bank-impersonation scams.
Score 75, grade BPayments and money
Google Wallet
Google Wallet is one of the safer ways to pay in a shop. Stores get a virtual card number instead of your real one, and every payment needs your screen lock. The privacy cost is higher, because Google collects purchase, pass and location data, can use it for ads, and shares fraud scores with other companies.
Score 70, grade BPayments and money
Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay
Samsung Wallet, which now contains Samsung Pay, is a safe way to pay in shops on a Galaxy phone. Stores get a token, not your card number, and each payment needs your fingerprint or PIN. Privacy is weaker, as the US notice allows in-app ads and partner sharing, while the Play label claims no data is collected.
Score 67, grade CPayments and money
BHIM
BHIM is one of the safer UPI apps. It is run by a subsidiary of NPCI, the body that operates UPI itself, carries no ads or loan offers, and has no breach or fine on record. The catches are a privacy label that understates what the app collects and the same UPI scams that hit every payment app.
Score 66, grade CPayments and money
Google Pay (India)
Google Pay is one of the safer UPI apps in India. Money stays in your bank, each payment needs your PIN, and the app flags suspected scams. The catches are wide data use for ads, UPI scams no app can reverse, and a ruling that Google used Android to favour Google Pay.
Score 62, grade CPayments and money
CRED
CRED is a reasonably safe way to pay card bills and make UPI payments, with solid security certifications and no regulator fine of its own. The cost is data. Joining requires a credit-bureau check, and the optional CRED Protect feature reads financial emails and SMS.
Score 61, grade CPayments and money
PhonePe
PhonePe is a reasonable way to make UPI payments in India. Your money stays in your bank and every payment needs your UPI PIN. The catches are wide data collection for marketing and lending, UPI scams that move money instantly with no buyer protection, and RBI penalties over wallet rules in 2019 and 2025.
Score 59, grade CPayments and money
super.money
super.money is a workable UPI app. Your money stays in your bank, every payment needs your UPI PIN, and no regulator has fined it. The catches are heavy data sharing for marketing and credit offers, account deletion that the terms say is not possible, and the same instant, final UPI scams as every other app.
Score 56, grade CPayments and money
PayPal
PayPal is a reasonable way to pay online stores, because goods and services payments carry Purchase Protection. The catches are a 2022 breach that led to a $2 million New York penalty, default sharing of shopping data with merchants since 2024, and scams that push people into unprotected Friends and Family payments.
Score 55, grade CPayments and money
Kakao Pay
Kakao Pay is a well-certified payment app with no reported breach, and for everyday transfers and payments in Korea it works safely. Its weak point is how it has treated user data. Regulators found it passed data on about 40 million users to an Alipay company without consent from 2018 to 2024, and fined it twice.
Score 54, grade DPayments and money
Zelle
Zelle is safe for paying people you know and trust. It runs inside your bank's app with the bank's login, and payments are not shown on any feed. The weak spot is scams. Transfers are instant and final, there is no purchase protection, and New York is suing its operator over more than $1 billion in alleged losses.
Score 54, grade DPayments and money
Paytm
The Paytm app is a reasonable way to make UPI payments, since your money sits in your own bank and Paytm now works through four large banks. The weak point is its record. The RBI restricted and then shut Paytm Payments Bank, which cut off the wallets and FASTags many app users relied on.
Score 53, grade DPayments and money
Alipay
Alipay is a secure, practical way to pay in China, and visitors can link a foreign card. The trade-offs are privacy and record. Data collected in China stays there, Apple's label links location, contacts and browsing to you, and China's central bank fined Alipay's payment company about 3.06 billion yuan in 2023.
Score 50, grade DPayments and money
MobiKwik
MobiKwik works for UPI and wallet payments, but it is one of the weaker Indian payment apps we have scored. A 2025 update let payments through without a valid UPI PIN, the RBI never published its audit of a 2021 leak claim that MobiKwik denied, and the app shares data for ads.
Score 50, grade DPayments and money
Venmo
Venmo works well for paying people you know. Its weak points are privacy and scams. Payments from new accounts may be public by default, the FTC found in 2018 that Venmo misled users about privacy and security, and personal payments sent to a scammer have no Purchase Protection.
Score 48, grade DPayments and money
Cash App
Cash App collects less for advertising than most payment apps, and its App Store label shows no cross-app tracking. Its weak point is fraud. The CFPB found in 2025 that Block mishandled fraud and unauthorized transfers, and state regulators and attorneys general have added penalties since.
Score 47, grade D
Which apps are on this list
The rule: the app's main job is moving money from your bank account, card or app balance to another person or a shop. That covers peer-to-peer apps in the US (PayPal, Venmo, Cash App and Zelle), India's UPI apps (PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, BHIM, CRED, MobiKwik and super.money), the phone wallets Apple Wallet and Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet, Vipps MobilePay in Norway, Denmark and Finland, South Korea's Kakao Pay, and China's Alipay. Kakao Pay is a separate app from KakaoTalk, so it has its own page.
Betting, prediction-market and sweepstakes casino apps sit in the same money section of our app list but are left out, as are cashback, reward and paid-survey apps such as Ibotta and Fetch. Bank apps, Revolut among them, are scored as banks, and crypto apps under crypto. Wallets inside messaging apps, such as WeChat Pay in WeChat and the Botim wallet, are scored on those apps' pages.
How the order is built
Each app is scored on five factors. Privacy and security count for 30% each: what the app collects and shares with advertisers and lenders, and how well it protects your login and each payment. Transparency and control count for 15%. Scams and harmful content count for 15%, which for payment apps mostly means fraud: whether payments can be reversed, what buyer protection exists and how the app warns you. The regulatory record counts for 10%. The full rubrics are on how we score apps.
The list is those scores sorted from the highest down. When we update a page, its place here moves too, so this text does not quote scores. The apps work in different markets under different rules, so compare the apps you can actually use.
What the apps near the top have in common
They put a check on every payment, and most have clean records. The phone wallets give the shop a token or virtual card number instead of your real one and ask for a fingerprint, face scan, PIN or screen lock before each payment. Apple Pay keeps the card key in a separate chip and says it keeps no card transaction record it can tie to you. On UPI apps the money stays in your bank and each payment needs a UPI PIN. BHIM, run by a subsidiary of NPCI, the operator of UPI, shows no ads or loan offers. Vipps and MobilePay show no data used to track you on their App Store labels, and also let iPhone users tap to pay with a card number that works only on the phone. We found no regulator fine against BHIM, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, CRED or Vipps MobilePay. Apple Pay is the exception: its security and privacy carry it despite a $25 million CFPB penalty in 2024 over Apple Card disputes filed in the Wallet app.
Why some well-known apps score lower
The US peer-to-peer apps carry heavier regulatory records. Cash App has a CFPB order of up to $175 million and several state settlements over how it handled fraud. Venmo is under a 2018 FTC order over privacy and security claims, and PayPal paid a $2 million New York penalty after a 2022 breach exposed Social Security numbers of 34,942 people. Zelle has no fine, but New York's attorney general is suing its operator over more than $1 billion in alleged scam losses. Paytm's record is about its former bank: the RBI shut down Paytm Payments Bank, and the app could not add new UPI users until October 2024. Three apps outside the US have their own weak spots. China's central bank fined Alipay's payment company about 3.06 billion yuan, including confiscated income, in July 2023, and data collected in China stays there. Korean regulators fined Kakao Pay twice, in 2025 and 2026, for sending data on about 40 million users to an Alipay company without their consent; it is challenging both penalties in court. A MobiKwik software update in September 2025 let payments go through with a wrong UPI PIN for two days.
What the score does not tell you
No score protects you from a payment you approve yourself. On every app here, a transfer to a scammer is usually final, and buyer protection, where it exists, covers only some kinds of payment. Before you pay someone you met online, ask what happens if the item never arrives. If the answer is "nothing", pay another way.
Questions
Is Cash App safe?
It works for paying people you know, and its App Store label shows no tracking across other apps. Its weak point is how it has handled fraud. In 2025 the CFPB ordered Block to pay up to $175 million after finding it failed to investigate unauthorized transfers properly, and settlements with 48 state regulators ($80 million) and 46 states ($45 million) followed. Contact Cash App only from inside the app or cash.app, because fake support lines are a common scam, and never share your sign-in code or PIN.
Is Zelle safer than Venmo?
For privacy, yes. Zelle runs inside your bank's app and payments are not shown on any feed, while Venmo may make a new account's payments public until you change the default to private. For scams, Venmo is the better choice, because Purchase Protection covers payments marked as goods and services or sent to business profiles. Zelle has no purchase protection, and a Senate subcommittee found the three largest banks refunded Zelle scam disputes only 12% of the time in 2023. Use Zelle only for people you already know.
Can I get my money back if I paid a scammer?
Usually not, if you pressed send yourself. In the US, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E protect you against transfers you did not make, such as after an account takeover, but not against payments you approved after being tricked. The exceptions are narrow, such as PayPal and Venmo Purchase Protection for goods and services and Zelle's refunds for certain impostor scams. In India, UPI payments are final. Report a scam at once in the app, to your bank and on the 1930 helpline, because banks can sometimes freeze money that has not yet been withdrawn.
What is the safest way to send money?
To family and friends, use your bank's own app or a payment app you have already set up, and check the name shown before you confirm. To anyone you do not know, use a method with buyer protection, such as a PayPal goods and services payment or a credit card, never a Friends and Family, Zelle or UPI transfer. In shops, a phone wallet such as Apple Pay, Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet gives the store a token instead of your real card number and needs your fingerprint, face, PIN or screen lock for every payment.
Are UPI apps safe?
The design is sound. Your money stays in your bank account and every payment needs a UPI PIN you set with your bank. Scams are the problem, with 12.64 lakh UPI fraud cases worth ₹981 crore across all apps in 2024-25, according to India's Finance Ministry. One rule stops most of them. You never need your UPI PIN to receive money, so if someone asks you to enter it, you are making a payment.