Facebook is taking on Venmo, Apple Pay and others with a consolidated payments service that works across its main app, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
People have been able to make purchases and send money to each other through Facebook’s various apps for some time but the new Facebook Pay service promises to make the experience more convenient, secure and consistent.
Users will be able to add preferred payment methods – including most major credit and debit cards, as well as PayPal – once and then use Facebook Pay without having to re-enter their details. They can also set up the feature app-by-app or all at once, as well as see their payment history, manage their methods and update their settings in one place.
Facebook Pay will roll out on Facebook and Messenger this week in the US for fundraisers, in-game purchases, event tickets, P2P payments and some parts of Facebook Marketplace. It will eventually arrive on Instagram and WhatsApp and in other countries.
The move to consolidate payments is part of a wider effort by Facebook to integrate its messaging platforms, binding the firm’s disparate entities closer together as it faces growing antitrust scrutiny.
Facebook says the new offering is separate from the Calibra wallet that the social media giant is building to run on the controversial Libra cryptocurrency network, which is likely to be a long way off launching.
