Friend-to-Friend Payments May be Coming to Facebook Messenger

[Steven Bogos]

Friend-to-Friend Payments May be Coming to Facebook Messenger

You may soon be able to loan your buddy some cash via Facebook's Messenger app.

Facebook Messenger has not received the Andrew Aude [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-messenger-app-store-reviews-are-humiliating-2014-8] show that users may soon be able to send friend-to-friend payments using the application.

Aude used iOS app exploration developer tool Cycript to discover the feature, which he believes is fully implement, and only requires Apple to "flip the switch" to turn it on. He explains that Messenger's payment option lets users send money in a message similar to how they can send a photo. Users can add a debit card in Messenger, or use one they already have on file with Facebook. An in-app pincode also exists for added security around payments.

The existence of this feature certainly lines up with what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company's Q2 earnings call earlier this year. "Over time there will be some overlap between [Messenger] and payments. [...] The payments piece will be a part of what will help drive the overall success and help people share with each other and interact with businesses," he said.

Meanwhile, Aude claims that Facebook keeps the transaction private and doesn't publish anything about it to the News Feed, and for now, there doesn't seem to be a fee associated with using the service, though he believes that this will eventually change. Interestingly, only debit cards are supported by the service, and there is no PayPal option.

Aude says that Facebook will probably launch the service in the US in the next few months, with the rest of the world to follow.

Would friend-to-friend payments be enough to get you to install Facebook's messenger app?

Source: Tech Crunch [http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/05/pay-with-facebook-messenger/?ncid=rss]

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[Parasondox]

How about, NO with an added, Would anyone trust Facebook enough with their personal banking details?

 

[Kameburger]

Nope... I'd sooner consent to being devoured by spiders than this bs..... What the hell....

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Oh, this is just golden. Yep, if this isn't some hoax, I'm sure FB will gladly let you do some inter-friend banking, at a price.(It might actually good for selling expensive things like xboxes, tvs, and vintage lint collections to friends, but this new invention called paper money is getting pretty popular with private sales, too.)

Now, how long until someone either tries to social engineer some dough out of someone they met online or someone hacks a person's account and pretends to be that individual and asks a friend/relative for some emergency cash? (It would be easy for the perp to come up with an excuse and know who to ask, seeing as everyone posts their entire life online now. If they were crafty enough, they could probably get some serious cash out of a family member before others posted conflicting things and put holes in the scheme.)

Linking your FB account to a debit card is just asking someone to try and drain your account. It's bad enough people still post that they just bought a $3000 TV or that they're going on vacation, then it filters through friends of friends until it gets to the guys that just bought some new burglary tools. Now, ID thieves would have another point of attack. Let this be a sick joke.

captcha: Take a look
Damn, even the captcha is saying we should think twice on this one.

 

[Dark Knifer]

How about, NO with an added, Would anyone trust Facebook enough with their personal banking details?

Yes, all the people who use micro transactions on facebook games have done so, and there are a few of them.

OT: I can sort of see the appeal as the goal seems to be making elexctronic cash seem more like real cash, which is where we are going so guess this had to happen at somepoint.

 

[Keoul]

Aren't there already bank apps for this kinda thing?
Either way I wouldn't really want facebook having that kind of information about me.

 

[Donzacuceron]

Yeah there's like no way this can go badly, right guys, right?

 

[RicoADF]

I can safely say I'll never use this feature and if they try requriring the details to use the app it'll be leaving my devices instantly.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

What could possibly go wrong?

Ohhhh, I see this being hacked so fast...

So much nope for me.

 

[Dessembrae]

as a swede this seems somewhat outdated, already have 2 apps on my phone that can do this in different ways.
And one of them only need your phone nr for me to send you money.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

And Facebook continues its slide into irrelevance and idiocy. Seriously, given how dreadful their record with privacy is, you have to wonder who thought this would be either needed or wanted.

 

[weirdee]

Y'know what would make Facebook games better? Real world trading!

...

yeah they didn't really think this through