Snapchat Introduces Snapcash

Last week, messaging giant Snapchat revealed a more business oriented feature by introducing peer-to-peer payment system Snapcash. The messaging app added a payment option into its services in partnership with Square Cash. Square Cash is a service of one of the world’s leading mobile payments company Square Inc.

Through Snapcash, now you can add details of your debit card into your Snapchat account, type an amount in Snapchat’s text-chat, and tap the pay button to instantly send money to any person in your friend’s list. For now, the feature is only available in the Android app. An iOS version of the app, equipped with Snapcash is coming soon.

Apart from p2p payments, in the future, Snapchat users could use this for e-commerce and payments to merchants as well. For example, in future you may receive ‘snaps’ as an ad from a merchant, and Snapcash will enable you to buy the product right from the app. Moreover, if everything goes well with Square Cash, Snapchat could possibly use debit card information via Snapcash accounts to improve its ad targeting.

How it works

Users who are over the age of 18 and from the United States can sign-up for this feature. They have to add their Visa or Mastercard debit card information. It is interesting to know that all debit card account information is held and processed by Square Cash. So, users don’t have to worry about Snapchat’s privacy and security measures, which saw some serious issues due to third-party hacks just a couple of months ago.

Sending an amount to a friend as easy as sending a message. You type a “$” symbol in the text box and write the amount you want to pay next to it. Snapchat assumes that you are trying to pay, changes the send button to a green Snapcash button, and tapping it deposits money into a friend’s account. If your friend hasn’t signed up for the service as yet, that amount will sit and wait there for them to grab in next 24 hours. If the cash amount is not accepted within 24 hours, it will be refunded into your account.

Snapchat did say it was interested in offering more payment methods such as credit cards or bank accounts. However, it was not possible because Square only handles Visa and Mastercard debit cards for now.

Although Venmo, Google Wallet and other p2p payment market options are quite useful, yet, none of them have gained widespread consumer adoption. Now, with Snapcash around, which already have tens of millions of regular users, who uses it on a regular basis with their close friends, these payment options may see fierce competition.

Wrap Up

In conclusion, Snapchat has turned the entire payment process as easy as sending a time-bound disappearing image. By indulging itself into p2p payments through a consumer app with tens of millions of regular users, Snapcash could become the next big thing in mobile payment solutions.