SnapChat is jumping into the trend of mobile payment with "SnapCash," a joint venture with payment processing company Square that allows users to send money to one another using the social networking site by linking their MasterCard or Visa debit cards to their accounts.
The process is very simple: type a message, use a dollar sign and jot down the amount.
"The product you're seeing today is fast, fun and incredibly simple," SnapChat said in a statement. They even created a music video to promote the product.
For the last three years since its launch in 2011, SnapChat has created a whole new breed of social networking services that allow users to communicate through photos or vidoeos. SnapChat reports users send 700 million videos and photos every day.
The new SnapCash service ties two big trends. The first taps into Snapchat's popularity among the 14- to 34-year-old set, according to industry researcher eMarketer. That age group also happens to be the largest without a bank account, according to surveys by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Snapcash service could be a game-changer for teens wanting to send and receive money online.
Cashless mobile payment has been increasingly popular, with the emergence of applications like Apple Pay and Google Wallet recently, along with the popularity of smartphones. Mobile payments in the United States are expected to triple to $142 billion in 2019.
Already, retailers like Whole Foods and WalMart as well as fast food giant McDonald's are reporting an increase in cashless mobile payment transactions the past few monhs.
Let's hope SnapCash doesn't make your money disappear "in a snap."
Netizens on Twitter called out the move as dubious since there has been an incident just recently called "The Snappening," where hackers got hold of 200,000 SnapChat accounts along with hundreds of SnapChat pictures via third party applications.
"Snapcash: As if drunk snapchatting pictures to everyone in my contacts wasn't enough, now I can wake up with no money and even more reget," one user wrote.
