French bank, Twitter team up to let customers transfer money via tweets

PanARMENIAN.Net - One of France's largest banks is teaming up with social network Twitter Inc. this week to allow its customers to transfer money via tweets, Reuters reported.

The move by Groupe BPCE, France's second largest bank by customers, coincides with Twitter's own push into the world of online payments as the social network seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising.

The bank said last month it was prepared to offer simple person-to-person money transfers via Twitter to French consumers, regardless of what bank they use, and without requiring the sender know the recipient's banking details.

"(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.

Payment by tweets will be managed via the bank's S-Money service, which allows money transfers via text message and relies on the credit-card industry's data security standards.

BPCE and Twitter declined to provide further details ahead of a news conference in Paris on Tuesday to unveil the service, Reuters says.

Thomas Husson, a marketing strategy analyst with Forrester Research, said Twitter was likely to multiply efforts to explore new ways to generate revenue with banks and credit card firms.

"Twitter wants to more explicitly demonstrate the overall value of its network as an advertising platform," he said.