Square has acquired the U.S. startup Evenly for its person-to-person payment app and wallet. Evenly's service enables P2P fund transfers using an email address within a social media group.

Square's purchase of Evenly follows PayPal's recent acquisition of Braintree, developer of the Venmo P2P payments platform.

In October, Square launched the Square Cash P2P service, which enables consumers to send money using their debit cards to other consumers via email.

According to a blog posting by Mercator Advisory Group analyst Ron Mazursky, Square's acquisition of Evenly will help to bolster its Square Cash offering.

"Evenly's app makes it easy for anyone to send or collect payments from friends, anywhere, anytime," Gokul Rajaram, product engineering lead at Square, said in a blog post.

"The Evenly team will work alongside Square engineers and designers to bring simplicity, transparency, and immediacy to commerce," Evenly said on its website. "At Square, we'll help make commerce easy for millions of buyers and sellers."

Evenly will shut down on Jan. 15, and its accounts will remain active until that time, the firm said.

Learn more about money transfer/P2P.