Snapchat Unveils Snapcash: With Square Payments, App Now Offers Free Digital Transfers

Snapchat and Square have partnered for a payments feature built into the disappearing-picture app, the two said Monday. Snapcash, as its called, allows users to send money to friends, much like the payments company Square’s own app, Square Cash, which transmits money through email.

Users type a private message including an amount, like “here’s the $50 I owe you.” The new feature appears after seeing the dollar amount, and pops up as a green button on the keyboard, which users can tap to send the cash.

The new feature is restricted to users 18 and older using Visa or Mastercard debit cards, with the financial information stored by Square, Snapchat said in a blog post. Users who sign up for Snapcash are creating a Square Cash account at the same time, which the payments company hopes will bring in a host of new users.

Snapchat declined to tell Re/code, which first reported the news, whether Square was collecting a small fee for each payments. The partnership is not meant to compete with services like eBay Inc.’s Paypal, or Venmo, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel told the site. Snapchat recently introduced advertising into the "Recent Updates" section of its app, and is in talks with media companies to bring partners' content to an upcoming "Discover" section as well, as it tries to find ways to make money off of its popular service.

Snapcash was introduced into Snapchat's Android app with an update Monday. The company says the feature will soon be included on its iPhone app as well.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the "Discover" section where Snapchat had instituted its new advertisements. It has been corrected to refer to "Recent Updates," as the "Discover" section is a yet-to-be-released feature.