Social media is taking its first baby steps as a payment network in Australia, but so far the banks don't have much to worry about. The peer-to-peer payment service, Pygg, which was launched 12 months ago, has gathered just 253 followers on its Twitter account.Pygg uses Twitter as its platform, embedding small payments in messages sent between account holders (Pygglets).Pygg's chief executive, Peter Crowe, said the most common use was to settle restaurant bills. Coffee runs are also popular.Pygg users pay $2.50 to load money into their Pygg account. Transactions are free. Payments are instant and are accompanied by messages.Pygg's business case is that the established payment infrastructure is not suitable for small peer-to-peer payments. Despite the modest take-up, Pygg is continuing with its development.Speaking at the Payment Innovation World conference in Sydney yesterday, Crowe said the service would introduce a "request for payment" feature that would allow authorised account holders to withdraw money from someone else's account.Users do not need to be 18 to have an account, so Pygg applications could include payments of pocket money and small payments at schools, for lunches, for example.Crowe said that because payments were accompanied by messages, Pygg had a level of personalisation that other payment systems did not have. This made it suitable as a way of giving cash gifts.Pygg works on iPhones but is not available in an Android version yet.