Snap is set to close down its Snapcash peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payments service on 30 August, after four years of operation.

The company did not disclose the reasons for the closure and it remains unclear how many of its customers were actively using the feature, as it was not broken out in Snap’s financial statements.

Snapchat – as the parent company was known at the time – was one of the first mainstream social media platforms to dabble in social payments when it launched the service tied into its photo-sharing app.

The feature allowed instant payments to be made between US users through its messaging platform. No bank account details were exchanged and funds were processed directly through snapchat accounts.

The service launched in partnership with transaction processor Square.

After initial strong marketing of the service, promotion of its P2P feature has been somewhat muted in the last two years with the company seemingly focusing on its core photo sharing application.

Strong competition
In the last three years the mobile P2P payments sector, and so-called social payments, have been targeted by some huge companies.

Facebook unveiled a similar service to Snapcash in the US during 2015, and has since exported it to the UK, while PayPal has actively promoted its Venmo system since it acquired the brand as part of a larger deal at the end of 2013.

A consortium of some of the US’ largest banks developed its own P2P system Zelle last year.

A spokesperson for Snap said: “We’re discontinuing the Snapcash feature as of August 30, 2018. Snapcash was our first product created in partnership with another company – Square. We’re thankful for all the Snapchatters who used Snapcash for the last four years and for Square’s partnership.”