ONE of France’s largest banks launched a service Tuesday to allow its customers to transfer money to other people via tweets on social network Twitter Inc.

    The move by Groupe BPCE, France’s second largest bank by customers, is an effort to attract attention and users to its S-Money mobile payments unit, which already allows people to transfer money over mobile phones via text message.

    Created by the bank using Twitter’s open software standards, known as APIs, the service allows French customers to send money to a friend regardless of which bank they use, and without requiring them to know the recipient’s banking details.

    For its part, Twitter is making its own separate push into the world of online payments as the social network seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising.

    Twitter is racing other tech giants Apple and Facebook to get a foothold in new payment services for mobile phones or apps. They are collaborating and, in some cases, competing with banks and credit card issuers that have run the business for decades.

    (SD-Agencies)