Social payments are taking a giant leap forward. PayPal has unveiled a Facebook app that lets you send money to friends.

The app, simply titled Send Money, is just as straightforward as its name. You have the choice to send either an ecard with money or just money with no card. You select a card, choose a friend to send it to and then select how much money to send.

"The PayPal and Facebook infrastructure have now merged," PayPal's Anuj Nayar says. "This is another way to personalize the act of giving money."

While there are several ways to pay with PayPal via Facebook (Payvment comes to mind), this is the first app to enable peer-to-peer payments via Facebook and PayPal. And because it's a peer-to-peer transaction, there is no transaction fee, though PayPal's regular limits and international fees still apply.

"Sending money, person to person, is free," PayPal Senior Product Marketing Manager JB Coutinho said. "If it's funded by a PayPal balance or linked to a bank account, it's free."

And while the primary aspect of the Send Money app is its enablement of transactions across the world's largest social network, the ecard aspect is being emphasized as well. PayPal was quick to point out that more than 500 million ecards are sent every year, and that's why PayPal is offering dozens of choices for everything from birthdays to congratulations.

We can see the app really taking off. Users who see on Facebook that it's a friend's birthday can quickly fire up the app and send a card and some cash within a few minutes. The app is just as useful for things like lottery pools and reimbursing friends for lunch. It's a big step toward making social payments a reality.

If you want to learn more about the PayPal Send Money Facebook App, we've created a simple walkthrough of the payment process. Check it out in the gallery below, and let us know what you think of the app in the comments.