In France People can make payments by Twitter

Twitter users in France can now tweet more than bon mots following an innovative new use for the service developed by a French banking group. Groupe BPCE has announced that customers of any bank in France with a cash card and a Twitter handle will be able to Tweet each other money, courtesy of the company's S-Money subsidiary. BPCE, based in Paris, operates 8,000 branches and serves more than 36 million clients. It also owns a majority stake in Natixis (KN) SA, a corporate-and-investment banking and asset-management business.

Representatives of closely held BPCE and Twitter, contacted by phone and e-mail today, declined to discuss details of the payment service. Apple Inc. introduced an iPhone in September with a mobile-wallet feature that allows in-store payments from a touch screen. EBay Inc. is spinning off its PayPal division to better fend off competition from Apple and Google Inc. as consumers step up the use of smartphones and computers to pay for good and services.
S-Money, set up in 2012, is similar to UK services such as Barclays Pingit, offering peer-to-peer payments via mobile. "We warmly welcome this innovation developed by Groupe BPCE and the service it provides to Twitter users in France by integrating its S-Money service into a live, public, conversational dimension characteristic of Twitter," said Olivier Gonzalez, CEO of Twitter France.

Nicolas Chatillon, CEO of S-Money, explained: "The ease of use and immediacy of the S-Money payment solution for individuals is perfectly adapted to the Twitter user experience. "It 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. We plan to make this new service available to the general public in early October." Although this is not an official co-venture with Twitter, the company has shown an enthusiastic response to anyone who thinks of new ways to use its service, not least because no-one is really sure how the multi-billion dollar, top 10 website is going to turn a profit. Twitter's first results as a public company showed a loss of $511m, and yet its popularity has meant that investors still flock to it without really being sure how and whether it will ever make a return.

Payments are capped at 250 euros (about $317) for individuals and 500 euros ($635) for charities in times of crowd-funding. Users also have to use a specific format for their payments to be accepted. S-Money has opted for € rather than the written version of euros, for example. Facebook made a request to Irish banking authorities in April to set up its own payment system.