Facebook Messenger Payments
Facebook Messenger Payments
Facebook have enabled its users to pay their friends via messenger online. With the help of this feature users using their messenger can now pay instantly. To start with this service will be used for personal payments but it may be used for business payments some time in future. Other companies which does offer online payments are PayPal, Ali-pay, Google and Amazon. While this move will be a pleasant surprise for Facebook users it is not a good news for companies like Paypal which solely depends on online payments for its business.
It is also worth noting that to start with the Facebook will offer this service or free without any commissions. Facebook may impose a little fee in future but right now there is no fees on using this service. Facebook already used to take payments in the past when any one want to advertise on its network so they have an existing infrastructure for accepting payments.
The person who want to send payment have to do it from his credit card or debit card. The real strength of Facebook is its user base which exceeds one billion users. In many countries cellular providers does provide money transfer services and Facebook can also be a competition to them once it expands its online payment services all over the globe. Currently Facebook messenger payment services is only available in US.
Facebook also acquired a lot of land recently in Menlo Park, California and this shows that they are definitely planning to expand in to other domains and businesses. This move show that they are aggressive and with their large user base it is pretty easy for them to jump into any business and due to their user power they will have a definite edge.
If Facebook decides it wants to expand its services it could do it so that even the foreign workers who use to send money via Money gram, Westernunion or other services shift and use Facebook messenger payments rather than the existing method its using.