Facebook is not just a social networking website or application, but also facilitates online payments to apps and other services. However, users were not able to send money to, or receive money from each other – until now but it entered into the mobile payments fray with a new service connected to its Messenger app. With the new payments feature, you can do more than send messages and emoticons to your friends, you can send cold hard (digital) cash.
With the addition of a new feature to its Messenger app, Facebook will now allow its users to send money directly to their contacts. Facebook is positioning the feature as a “more convenient and secure way” to send and receive money between friends.
Though the service will be available to small scale population, still it is a big move from the social networking site towards providing a mobile payment gateway. This new mobile payment method via Messenger will only be offered to the US users initially after it launches in the next few months.
The impressive new service is free of cost and allows users to utilize icons on the Messenger app to conveniently send the information. To send payments, users can type the “$” icon located on top of the keyboard, enter the intended amount, and then confirm the payment by finding the “Pay” icon in the top right corner of the app. Facebook Messenger payments support debit cards issued by US banks that run on the Visa and MasterCard networks to finalize the payment. Receiving the money requires the recipient to merely open a chat and then add their own debit card to transfer the money to their account. Transactions can take up to three business days owing to processing, but the funds are transferred immediately through the application.