Snapchat is the latest entrant into the mobile payments war with Snapcash, a partnership with Square that will let you send money along with your compromising photos. The new feature, annouced Monday afternoon, is seductively simple, especially compared to the hoops often involved with online banking. You just connect your debit card, then type the dollar symbol and the amount you want to send into a text to Snapchat friend and voila, your friend has the money on their card.
"We’re huge fans of the folks at Square and have been big admirers of Square Cash since it launched," Snapchat wrote in its announcement. "We loved it so much that we wanted to create something with them that felt Snapchat-y. So we built a Snapcash prototype and shared it with the team at Square. Luckily for us, they were just as excited as we were and wanted to build it together."
It's a clever move for Snapchat as it looks for ways to monetize its vast user base with ads and other tools. Square gets all the benefits as well since it all goes through its system. For anyone worried about Snapchat's recent security issues, the account information is all in Square's system, not anywhere else.
"We set out to make payments faster and more fun, but we also know that security is essential when you’re dealing with money," Snapchat wrote. "Square has a ton of experience in this area and our teams have been hard at work to make Snapcash a great experience for everyone. For now, Snapcash is available to Snapchatters in the United States who have a debit card and are 18 or older."
Plans by Facebook to turn its Messenger into a payment system and experiments by Twitter to do something similar only highlight how much of a brewing battle in the domain there is. Snapchat seems to have beaten them to the punch though. And as you can see in the explanatory video below, Snapcash comes with a catchy theme tune too. "Send money easy, it's fast and breezy," indeed.
