It seems like you can do almost anything via Twitter. Politicians can spread their messages, celbrities can communicate with fans, and, now, Twitter users can pay each other. Groupe BPCE, via its subsidiary S-Money, announced last week that S-Money users will be able to send money to one another starting in October simply by tweeting to @user to whom they wish to send money. The best part is, the recipient does not even need to be a S-Money user.
The service looks to currently be available only in France; however, the integration looks to be quite convenient. Via the S-Money smartphone application, users can select the amount of money they wish to transfer, as well as the recipient, and, assuming you know the recipient’s Twitter handle, you can send them a unique URL allowing them to retrieve their money.
I assume that retrieval of their money is done via Twitter authentication. Either way, there’s no excuse not to pay your friends back when it’s as easy as a tweet.
In a more broad sense, as Twitter looks to find its place in an increasingly Facebook-dominated world, integrations like these may be key. Facebook’s large ecosystem makes sending Facebook messages inefficient (especially if you call in the dreaded ‘other’ inbox), and Twitter’s status as a real-time newsfeed means people are checking @mention’s often.