Israeli electronic debit systems for online banking payments developer SeerGate has launched a direct peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service for social networking environments.

SeerGate’s new Secured Lock e-debit system allows buyers and sellers to carry out P2P payment transactions via social networking websites such as Facebook. In order to use the service, sellers use an application provided by SeerGate which generates a personal invoice, which is in turn verified by the their bank and sent to the buyer via the social network.

In turn, the buyers approve the invoice, complete an authentication process with their bank after which the payment transaction is completed directly between the buyers’ and sellers’ bank accounts, without any sensitive financial information being disclosed over the internet.