Groupe BPCE, France's second largest bank by customers partnered with social media giant Twitter to allow clients to transfer money via tweets.
The move was reportedly one of Twitter's efforts to find other ways to earn profits aside from advertising and to advance into the realm of online payments.
Twitter is currently raging a "mobile wallet" war with social media powerhouse Facebook and electronics giant Apple, which recently announced the arrival of its mobile payment system, Apple Pay.
Furthermore, Facebook has offered "Transfer by Facebook" with the help of Rakuten Bank in Japan that lets clients send money via their mobile banking application to anyone on their friends list.
Meanwhile, Twitter was reportedly partnering with several banks and organizations that issue credit cards that have experience in the online payment industry to materialize its vision of entering the online payments world.
Clients of Group BCE can pay and transfer money via tweets through the bank's mobile payments unit, S-Money Service.
"(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," as stated by Nicolas Chatillon, chief executive of S-Money.
Meanwhile, Twitter had previously commenced series of trials in Sept. for "Twitter Buy," a new service that enables clients to purchase products through the Twitter web site.
"Twitter Buy" button is currently incorporated already in the tweets of over 24 stores, musicians and non-profit organizations, including Home Depot, Burberry. Megadeth and Pharell Williams.
"From the Twitter point of view, there is a limit to their appetite for getting involved in payments processing itself," according to a payments analyst with financial services research firm AITE Group, Andrew Copeman.
"At the moment, banks are probably viewing Twitter and other social media networks as marketing channels to reach a wider set of their customers and to extend the bank's existing mobile banking initiatives," Copeman continued.
