Facebook To Possibly Allow Friend To Friend Payments

I was doing some light reading on TechCrunch over the weekend and found this interesting article “Hacked Screenshots Show Friend-To-Friend Payments Feature Hidden In Facebook Messenger“, I think the full article is well worth a read but here is the TL:DR for the lazy among you.

  • Not publicly available, some rumors of staff having access
  • Screenshots indicate that only debit cards (think gift cards) will be accepted, no credit card or bank account option
  • No word on whether this will be a free or fee based service (in the event of it being free, it’ll be used as a loss leader/carrot to encourage users to use the stand alone app)
    • In the leaked screenshots video, there is no mention of any fees so it might originally launch as a no fee product
  • It doesn’t look like it’s coming anytime soon, Zuckerberg has warned investors to hold back their revenue estimates in their Q2 earnings call when the payments subject was broached

We’re going to take the time to do this in the way that is going to be right over multiple years – Zuckerberg

 

facebook-payments-select-method

Who knows how this is going to play out and or even it’ll be implemented. My guess is that if there is any opportunity for manufactured spending, it’ll be short lived. That said, I’d probably use a friend to friend payment system from Facebook, as I already have all my friends & family on there. It’d make paying for group dinners much easier, as we wouldn’t all need the same payment app as we all already have Facebook.

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Chuck
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Chuck(@chucksithe)
October 6, 2014 10:37

Very interesting find.