Facebook Pay – a new way to make payments across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp – is rolling out this week in the United States.
As part of its efforts to make eCommerce more convenient for users and significantly easier for small businesses, Facebook announced Facebook Pay, “a convenient, secure, and consistent payment experience” across its platforms.
Facebook’s users already send money to each other, buy things, and donate to various causes, on its apps. Facebook Pay comes to make payments significantly easier while keeping their information “secure and protected.”
People can add their preferred payment method only once, and then use Facebook Pay wherever it’s available, to make payments and buy things through its apps, without having to add payment information over and over again.
So, exactly like other payment systems like Apple Pay or PayPal? Yes, pretty much. The difference here is that Facebook is betting on keeping payments within its ecosystem, and not relying on third parties. Of course, it supports most major credit and debit cards as well as PayPal. Also, payments are actually processed by PayPal, Stripe, and other payment processors.
Facebook says that while “Facebook Pay is built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships,” it is “separate from the Calibra wallet which will run on the Libra network.”
Facebook Pay starts rolling out on Facebook and Messenger this week in the United States only. It will be available for fundraisers, in-game purchases, event tickets, person-to-person payments on Messenger, as well as purchases from some Pages and businesses on Facebook Marketplace.
The plan is to bring Facebook Pay to more countries soon and, of course, to other apps like Instagram and WhatsApp.
People in the United States can start using Facebook Pay on Facebook or Messenger by following these steps:
- Go to “Settings” > “Facebook Pay” on the Facebook app or website
- Add a payment method
- The next time they want to make a payment, they can use Facebook Pay
- As soon as Facebook Pay is available on WhatsApp and Instagram, they will also be able to set it up within each app separately.
Payments on Facebook aren’t new. The company has offered payments since 2007; it has processed more than $2 billion in fundraising donations since 2015.
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