Snapchat, the popular photo messaging app, announced a new feature yesterday. You may have gotten a first glimpse at it when “Team Snapchat” sent users an introduction video. It’s called Snapcash and it essentially allows users to transfer money to one another. Snapchat has teamed up with Square, a rising star in the financial services field. Square also happens to have their own version of Snapcash, called Square Cash. However, with the popularity of Snapchat, the partnership makes perfect sense to help boost the branding of Square.
If you’re familiar with Snapchat, you’ll know they added a text feature a while back. This is where you will send money to friends using Snapchat. On this feature you simply type in the dollar amount, hit the green button and the money is now in your friends account. Of course you will need to add your debit card information. However this information will be kept with Square. Snapchat will not be storing any of the payment information. This will be a relief to those worried about Snapchat’s prior security issues. Snapchat was kind of enough to make a funny video introducing Snapcash, here is the two minute video.
This move could put Snapchat in a prime position for their ecommerce hopes. A while back we announced Snapchat would begin advertising and this new feature will play right into that. Previously, Snapchat did not have any real personal information of its users. All it asked for was a username and password. However now Snapchat will have access to the information associated with debit cards uploaded to square. With access to real names, addresses and so forth, Snapchat will have a much better idea of who their audience is. With that in effect, ad targeting is inevitable. Following in the footsteps of Facebook, Instagram and other major social media platforms, expect Snapchat to begin experimenting with new ways to bring users relevant ads. With these relevant ads, I would expect companies to send special offers to users and Snapcash being used to purchase the product directly. If you are an avid Snapchat user, do you think Snapcash will take flight? Would you use it to send money to friends or to purchase products? Also, what else could Snapcash be used for? Let us know what you think!
Work Cited:
“Snapchat lets you transfer money to friends with Snapcash” by Jason Abbruzzese
“Snapchat Now Lets You Send Money To Friends Through Snapcash Deal With Square Cash” by Josh Constine
