New patents suggest Snapchat is entering the mobile payments market

Snapchat may take a leaf out of Asia’s messaging app playbook when it comes to making money, after two potentially telling trademark filings were unearthed. TechCrunch dug up filings related to processing electronic payments and money transfers. There’s an obvious joke here about ephemeral money transfers, but actually these filings are evidence of plans to monetize Snapchat using models that are successful outside of the US. Snapchat counts Tencent as an investor and CEO Evan Spiegel is said to “frequently” speak to the Chinese internet giant, which operates hugely successful chat app WeChat. The service has nearly 400 million active users and is akin to Facebook in China, where, importantly, payments, and peer-to-peer money transfers are among its many features.