Snapchat’s woes show no sign of ending, and the latest casualty in the company is Snapcash, the peer-to-peer payment service. It’s likely that you’ve never heard of — much less used — the service, which makes its shuttering less of a surprise.
Part of Snapcash’s problem is that it wasn’t always used for the most innocent of purposes. Rather than splitting bills or sending back some money for the pizza you stole from your roommate, Snapcash tended to be used to pay adult entertainers for content on Snapchat. In short, it was probably more bane than boon to Snapchat proper.
The service, which was Snapchat’s very first product created via a partnership with another company (in this case, Square), will officially be no more come August 30. Code in Snapchat’s Android app notes a “Snapcash deprecation message” that shows, “Snapcash will no longer be available after %s [date].” The service lasted four years, but with the rise of other payment apps like Venmo and its parent company PayPal, as well as bank-backed Zelle, and of course Square Cash, there were few folks who turned to Snapchat and Snapcash in order to pay their friends.
A company spokesperson confirmed the depreciation to TechCrunch, saying, “Yes, we’re discontinuing the Snapcash feature as of August 30, 2018 … We’re thankful for all the Snapchatters who used Snapcash for the last four years and for Square’s partnership!” Folks who do depend on Snapcash will soon receive an in-app notification, and there should soon be messaging available on Snapchat’s support site indicating the closure of the service, too.
Of course, as one proverbial door closes, another will soon be opening, as Snapchat is rumored to be working on a new tool called Eagle. In essence, the feature lets you take a photo of a product or its barcode, and then in early versions of the code, redirects you to Amazon, where you’ll have the option of purchasing said product. Lately, however, it seems as though mentions of Amazon have been scrubbed from the app. Still, in order to make a purchase using Eagle, it seems like Snapchat might want to integrate some sort of native payment option, which is currently missing with the exit of Snapcash.
