BPCE: Customers of the French banking group can now tweet cash at each other

Groupe BPCE, the second largest banking group in France, has launched a service through its subsidiary company S-Money that will let users of the S-Money mobile app send money transfers via Twitter.

To use the service, consumers need to download the S-Money app, open an S-Money account by linking their bank card details and then connect the app to their Twitter account. From there, they can send tweets to other S-Money users indicating the amount of money they wish to transfer.

“Once they have opened their S-Money account, they will associate their Twitter account with their S-Money account using the Twitter function,” Armand Dos Santos, chief technical officer at S-Money, explained to NFC World+.

“Afterwards, they will simply send a tweet using the Twitter service. This tweet will indicate the Twitter address of S-Money, which is @smoneyfr. They will then add #envoyer ['#send'], add in the amount of money they want to send in euros, so for example €10, and then eventually the Twitter nickname of the user they want to send the money to.

“Once they send this tweet, they will receive an S-Money push on their mobile phone that will launch the S-Money application and then they will be able to finish the payment within the S-Money application by typing their S-Money secret code. The financial transaction itself is always and only performed within the S-Money platform.”

A video, in French, shows how the service works:

BPCE, which operates banking brands including Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne, set up S-Money three years ago with the goal of introducing a mobile payment service. As well as now being able to send money transfers via Twitter, S-Money users can also make online payments and transfer funds between one another using the recipient’s mobile phone number.