Online payment is the latest interest area of all the major tech giants, and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is the latest to join the race with its French partner. The customers of the French bank would be able to transfer money through tweets.
The timing of this partnership could not have been better as Twitter itself is looking to increase its revenue in addition to advertising. Groupe BPCE (BPCE.UL) said last month that it was trying to facilitate online money transfer via tweets for its French users without any need of knowing the recipient’s bank details. The bank will offer this facility under its S-Money feature.
Nicolas Chatillon, Chief executive of S-Money, mobile payments unit of BPCE, said, “(S-Money) offers Twitter users in France a new way to send each other money, irrespective of their bank and without having to enter the beneficiary’s bank details, with a simple tweet.” As of now, S-Money facilitates money transfers via text message and offers similar security standards as that of famous credit card providers.
It has been nothing short of a race amid tech companies to launch their online payment solution including Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) itself. Last month, Twitter added a “Buy” button in its tweets, which would allow its users to buy products without moving to the e-commerce platform. Some of the first few vendors using the Twitter Buy button include Burberry Group plc (LON:BRBY) and The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD).
However, some analysts consider social networks as a marketing tool for banks to reach a wider audience. Andrew Copeman, AITE Group, said, “From the Twitter point of view, there is a limit to their appetite for getting involved in payments processing itself. At the moment, banks are probably viewing Twitter and other social media networks as marketing channels to reach a wider set of their customers and to extend the bank’s existing mobile banking initiatives.”
On the contrary, some analysts are even speculating these attempts as positive activities from Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), which is struggling to increase revenue and growth rate.
This article has been written by Prakash Pandey.
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