Snapchat has just revealed their first product partnership with a third party company – Square Cash, claiming they have been big fans since it’s creation. Square Cash allows you to send money to your friends by simply typing a dollar value into a subject line on your email and hitting send.
The partnership will see this type of money transfer method placed into Snapchat’s current app infrastructure, with the process explained on the Californian-based companies official blog just today:
“The product you’re seeing today is fast, fun, and incredibly simple. After you enter your debit card, it’s securely stored by Square, who will swiftly process your payment and send cash directly to your friend’s bank account. Just swipe into chat, type the dollar sign, an amount (e.g. $11.25), and hit the green button.” Snapchat
It sounds like a pretty easy and convenient feature, however with one major flaw. There’s no talk about in-app security here – if you log in to your normal internet banking applications, they’ll require some form of a PIN code entry alongside disabling the app every time it senses an external application coming into play (like Facebook Messenger being opened over the top). But I see nothing in this release pointing towards this fact. It seems that if you’re going to use this new feature, you should make sure that your phone has a pass-code on the lock screen!
Snapchat makes sure to mention that Square will be dealing with the server-side security of this partnership, claiming that they have ‘a ton’ of experience in this area.
Snapcash has now been made available for 18-year-old and above users in the United States who have a debit card. If you’re interested, here’s their release video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwjxBmMszQ
