Facebook Now Allows You To Send Debit Card Payments To Friends

Facebook have added a new feature to their messenger application and that’s the ability to send money to your friends using a debit card. We’ve known that this feature has been coming for awhile (since October, 2014) but it has now finally launched.

This new feature will be rolled out slowly over the next couple of months. Here is how the new feature works:

You’ll only be able to add Visa or Mastercard debit cards and they must be issued by a US Bank. After you’ve added a debit card, you’ll be required to set a PIN for that card (which is only used for this application) and you’ll be required to enter that PIN every time you send a payment for increased security. You can also assign a touch ID if you’re using an iPhone.

Also just a quick note on why I decided to share this publicly rather than via newsletter (and I welcome your feedback on whether I got this call right or wrong in the comments). This feature is already being heavily reported on in the mainstream media, I don’t think there was ever any chance of this flying under the radar. Facebook is a massive multi national company that can afford loss leaders such as this (in fact they are still publicly staying they have no intention to become a payments company/make a profit from payments) and it’s still difficult to do any considerable volume with debit cards.

I will not be posting little work around’s for Facebook Pay on the blog publicly, so sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already. As I mentioned above, feel free to discuss in the comments.