‘Disposable’ Income: Why Snapcash is an Uphill Battle for Snapchat

‘Disposable’ Income: Why Snapcash is an Uphill Battle for Snapchat

Earlier today Snapchat announced Snapcash, a partnership between the popular multimedia messaging platform and Square, an early entrant into the cluttered mobile payment space. The idea is simple: send money through private Snapchat messages.

The sell is much more complex. After all, Snapchat has already established its identity as a platform for disposable content — photos, videos, and messages with a purposeful shelf life. Money, for most of us at least, doesn’t quite fit the bill.

As such, the leap to asking users to send something as permanent and tangible as money is a huge (and surprising) one. Platforms like Venmo and Paypal have already positioned themselves as mostly reliable, secure platforms that enable the transfer of cash across the mobile web.

Snapchat? Not so much. It’s probably why they issued a ban on all 3rd party apps just as this morning’s announcement hit. But winning peoples’ trust, and continuing to build it to the capacity that they’d be willing to share something as sensitive as payment information, is another thing entirely. I foresee a tough, uphill battle.

It’s not impossible, but is it one worth fighting?

Final pun count: 2

By weekday, Luke Kingma is an associate creative director at VaynerMedia, one of the leading digital and social media agencies in the industry. By weekend, he’s a traveler, explorer, and photographer. Follow along at @LukeKingma.