All Twitter users with a French bank card can now send money via a tweet following today’s launch of a new service by Groupe BPCE.

The free solution, run by the bank’s mobile payments subsidiary S-money, will allow people on the social media network to transfer a maximum of €250 to individuals and €500 to fundraising associations.

Users will have to download BPCE’s S-money app from the iTunes store or Google Play store, fill in their credit card information and then connect the app to their Twitter account. Exact symbols and words will be required in the tweet itself to enable the transfer, and any payment messages will be public.

“This initiative between Groupe BPCE and S-money on Twitter illustrates our group’s ability to deliver payment solutions in synch with new forms of usage and behaviour exhibited by individuals,” explained Jean-Yves Forel, Groupe BPCE chief executive officer for commercial banking and insurance.

Nicolas Chatillon, CEO of S-money, added: “This innovation opens up numerous opportunities in the payments field – charitable donations, crowdfunding in all its forms, ticketing and cash-back programmes.”

The move was further evidence of the rapid change that new technologies were driving in the financial services and payment sectors, said Anthony Duffy, director of retail banking at Fujitsu UK & Ireland.

“This offers mobile and social platforms the opportunity to add a further, customer attractive and very lucrative service to their core product offering,” he noted. “Traditionally, the high costs associated with entry to the payments business have acted as a deterrent to new entrants. The emergence of low cost and accessible mobile technologies is causing these long-standing barriers to break down.”

Last month, Twitter announced that it was trialling a new system which allows people to purchase items by clicking on a ‘buy’ button embedded in tweets.

Share Story: