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It was not that long ago that online banking was rolled out by all major banks, but now anyone living in France with a bank account and Twitter handle can send a tweet to transfer money.

The service, called S-Money, was developed by one of France's largest banks and uses the social network to send cash between users, who reportedly don't even have to enter bank details.

The move by Groupe BPCE, France's second largest bank by customers, coincides with Twitter's own push into the world of online payments as the social network seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising.

The service, called S-Money, was developed by one of France's largest banks and uses Twitter (screenshot pictured) to send cash between users, who don't even have to enter bank details

Twitter is racing other tech giants Apple and Facebook to get a foothold in new payment services for mobile phones or apps and while S-Money is not an official Twitter product, it shows what is possible on social networks.

'(S-Money) offers Twitter users in France a new way to send each other money, irrespective of their bank and without having to enter the beneficiary's bank details, with a simple tweet,' Nicolas Chatillon, chief executive of S-Money, BPCE's mobile payments unit, said in a statement.

Payment by tweets will be managed via the bank's S-Money service, which allows money transfers via text message and relies on the credit-card industry's data security standards.

Facebook and Twitter are said to be working on ways for people to transfer money, making splitting the bill (illustrated) as easy as sending a message

It is not clear at this time how the technology works and Mr Chatillon simply said: 'The ease of use and immediacy of the S-Money payment solution for individuals is perfectly adapted to the Twitter user experience.'

It appears that the service simply uses Twitter in a way that can be compared to third-party initiative such as Starbucks' #TweetACoffee and Amazon's #AmazonCart, where people use a specific hashtag in exchange for goods.

Last month, Twitter started trials of its own new service, Twitter Buy, to allow consumers to find and buy products on its social network

The service embeds a 'Twitter Buy' button inside tweets posted by more than two dozen non-profits music artists such as Pharrell and vendors such as Burberry and Home Depot.

Twitter's role to date has been to connect customers rather than processing payments or checking their identities.

'From the Twitter point of view, there is a limit to their appetite for getting involved in payments processing itself,' said Andrew Copeman, a payments analyst with financial services research firm AITE Group, who is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

'At the moment, banks are probably viewing Twitter and other social media networks as marketing channels to reach a wider set of their customers and to extend the bank's existing mobile banking initiatives,' he said. 

Last month, Twitter started trials of its new service, Twitter Buy, to allow consumers to find and buy products on its social network. The service embeds a 'Twitter Buy' button inside tweets posted by more than two dozen non-profits music artists such as Pharell and vendors such as Burberry (a catwalk show is pictured)

Twitter's success in developing additional services on its platform as Facebook has done will be key to its future profitability.

Rakuten Bank in Japan offers a similar 'Transfer by Facebook' service that lets users of its mobile banking app send money to anyone in their Facebook friends list.

Investors have been worried about Twitter's slowing user growth, sending the shares down about 17 per cent this year, while rival Facebook's have climbed 35 per cent.

Thomas Husson, a marketing strategy analyst with Forrester Research, said Twitter was likely to multiply efforts to explore new ways to generate revenue with banks and credit card firms.

'Twitter wants to more explicitly demonstrate the overall value of its network as an advertising platform,' he said.

Jean-Yves Forel, CEO of Groupe BPCE said: 'Groupe BPCE is the first banking group to offer individuals a payment solution where they can transfer money with a simple Tweet.

'This S-Money initiative opens up a whole new range of payment possibilities on the social networks.'

There is no indication that the service will be rolled out internationally.