The biggest social media platform has unveiled a new payments system, called Facebook Pay. It will be used in Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it’s sole purpose is to enable payments across Facebook’s popular social networks and apps.
Facebook Pay will be used to send money to friends, shop for goods, or even donate to fundraisers well, we think some features will be country dependent. This should not be confused with Facebook’s new Calibra wallet and the Libra network, and it’s “built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships,” according to the company.
The company is planning to start rolling out Facebook Pay on Messenger and Facebook but as all roll-outs go — its no surprise that it will initially roll out in the US. It will initially be available for fundraisers, person-to-person payments, event tickets, in-game purchases, and some purchases from pages and businesses that operate on Facebook’s Marketplace. As time goes on the company plans to bring Facebook Pay to more people and places, including for use across Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook Pay will be available in the settings section of the Facebook or Messenger apps, and it will support most debit and credit cards and PayPal. Facebook is using Stripe, PayPal, and others to process these payments.
Facebook isn’t giving much info exactly when this payment system will be available across all of its apps, nor when it will launch internationally. Facebook Pay comes just weeks after a large number of payment companies dropped out of Facebook’s Libra project. But unlike Libra, PayPal is supporting it, the nonprofit organization that oversees the creation of the cryptocurrency and its rollout.
“Facebook Pay is part of our ongoing work to make commerce more convenient, accessible and secure for people on our apps,” says Liu. “We’ll continue to develop Facebook Pay and look for ways to make it even more valuable for people on our apps.”
