Twitter Inc (NASDAQ:TWTR) is trying to create a place for itself in the mobile payment services sector. A step towards this is the introduction of a new feature allowing payments through tweets. The social media giant has teamed up with France’s second largest bank by customers for this new initiative.
No banking details required
Online payments is fast-growing and profitable, and both companies – Twitter and Groupe BPCE — are making a push into it, according to a report from FT. Advertising is the only source of revenue for the social media company, and the firm is looking to diversify its revenues. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) have already made a space for themselves in this field and will be tough competitors for the micro-blogging site. The segment is a unique as it sometimes competes with the banks and the credit card issuers who have been the major payments players for decades.
Last month, the French bank said it was prepared to allow its customers to make simple person-to-person transfers via Twitter. The service could be used by customers of all banks, and the sender could make the payment even without knowing the banking details of the recipient.
Twitter diversifying revenue streams
The bank has a service called S-Money that allows making transfers via text messages. This service will be responsible for managing the payments made through Twitter, and it uses the data security standards of the credit-card industry. The service will be unveiled by BPCE and Twitter in a press conference on Tuesday, October 14th in Paris.
“(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,” Nicolas Chatillon, chief executive of S-Money, BPCE’s mobile payments unit, said in the statement.
A new service for finding and buying products has been developed by Twitter known as ‘Twitter Buy,’ and trials of this service have already been started by the company as of last month. The feature involves a buy button inserted inside tweets by more than two dozen stores including Burberry, Home Depot, etc.
