Mobile peer-to-peer payments provider Venmo — recently acquired by payments processor Braintree — is known for making payments social. Venmo’s new app, updated Dec. 13 for the iPhone and Android devices, now allows users to “like” transactions, and to share comments on Facebook, Twitter, Google Places, and Foursquare.
The app was built to simply to move money, but extra functionality was added — comment fields to describe the payment. Venmo quickly discovered that its users had more to say.
Cora Weiss, Venmo’s marketing and communications manager, said that “the product was built to be a utility. But we noticed that the payment notes were so funny. It’s inherently social.”
The timeline of Venmo’s shared comments can make for amusing reading. Recently one user tagged a payment to another “for awesomeness.”
Will users continue to share humorous comments about payments sent and received outside the closed loop of Venmo? This will be a real test for the sociability of payments.
Braintree processes $5 billion in payments annually, $1 billion of it in mobile.