It’s not just Apple Pay that’s going to let you transfer funds using your iPhone. According to hidden code discovered in Facebook Messenger’s iOS app by Stanford student Andrew Aude, Facebook is also exploring the area — with a forthcoming feature that lets you send money as easily as you would “like” or share a photo.
@Facebook Messenger has P2P payments coming. @SquareCash style. pic.twitter.com/3NuXuuaMMC
— Andrew Aude (@andyplace2) October 4, 2014
In order for the private transaction to take place, you’ll simply need to add a new payment card and pin code. It’s not yet known whether Facebook will take a monetary cut of each payment, although this would seem to make sense.
No word yet on when the mobile payments function will be made available, but this is almost certainly a “when” rather than an “if” question.
Mark Zuckerberg recently noted that, “over time there will be some overlap between that and payments” and that, “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.”
Despite hiring former PayPal CEO David Marcus to head up Facebook’s instant messaging efforts, however, Zuckerberg admits that there’s “so much groundwork” to do before his social network fully dives in to the world of e-commerce.
Source: TechCrunch
