Social networking giant Twitter is all set to take the banking sector by the storm, making banking much more easier than it has ever been to its customers. Teaming up with French bank Groupe BPCE, Twitter Inc. can now allow its customers to transfer money via tweets, Reuters reported.
Groupe BPCE, the second-largest bank in France according to Bharat Book Bureau, had announced last month that it would offer French customers, simple one-to-one money transfers via Twitter, regardless of the bank, whose services they use and without disclosing banking details of the recipient of the money.
"(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.
While the payment by tweets will be managed via the French bank's S-Money service, which allows money transfers via text message and sticks to the credit-card industry's data security standards, Twitter has embedded a "Twitter buy" button inside tweets that allows customers to find and buy products on its social network.
The Twitter Buy button has been embedded in the tweets posted by over two dozen stores, music artists and non-profit organisations, including Burberry, Home Depot, Pharrell Williams, etc.
The French bank's move coincides with Twitter's venture into the world of online payments, as the social media giant seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising. Twitter's role till date has been to connect customers rather than processing payments or checking their identities.
"From Twitter's point of view, there is a limit to their appetite for getting involved in payments processing itself," Deccan Chronicle quoted Andrew Copeman, a payments analyst with financial services research firm AITE Group, who is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
"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," he added.
Twitter is competing with other tech giants Apple and Facebook to get a foothold on new payment services for mobile phones or apps. They are collaborating and, in some cases, competing with banks and credit card issuers that have run the business for decades.
In the video "A new way for you to make purchases on Twitter", social media giant explains how to buy products using Twitter Buy button.
