Can someone explain to me why FB chose to use credits over just actual money balances? Is it psychologically designed to get people more willing to fritter them in the same way it's easier to blow chips in a casino than real cash? Is it a way to funnel multiple currencies into one global currency? It just seems like an extra unnecessary convoluted layer to me. Having a credit balance over real money balance is unnerv…
Probably because FB is not a bank, and there are strict regulations in most countries for companies that store people's money like banks. Paypal is not a bank either, but I'd guess storing credits is still easier regulation-wise.
Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
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Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#12I'm curious about Square's reaction to this. It seems like people could literally start paying with Facebook at restaurants and bars. Now the charges are just part of the monthly phone bill instead of a monthly credit card bill. For that matter I wonder what implications this could have for credit card companies. Anyone know if, say, AT&T pays the same charge for accepting credit cards as small merchants?
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#13My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in my mind ... and that's pretty low.
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The picture is clearly a web page: Apple has no say.
Would be interesting if users could make "in-app"-purchases via the fb app by momentarily going to mobile safari and then coming back. It's cumbersome but gets around Apple's policies.
Apple already rejects apps that switch out to mobile safari for payments.
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#15This guy totally called it: http://blog.dinkevich.com/seriously-ads
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#16I'm curious about Square's reaction to this. It seems like people could literally start paying with Facebook at restaurants and bars. Now the charges are just part of the monthly phone bill instead of a monthly credit card bill. For that matter I wonder what implications this could have for credit card companies. Anyone know if, say, AT&T pays the same charge for accepting credit cards as small merchants?
What FB is offering here is carrier billing.
Short term, paying with FB for physical goods (eg. in restaurants, bars) is an unlikely outcome because carrier billing involves giving up an enormous percentage of the transaction to the carriers.
In the U.S., carrier billing typically involves yielding a 40 - 50% margin to the carriers. In Europe, the percentages are lower -- carrier billing is a more mature market there -- but they still top out around 20 - 30%. In developing markets, margins can go as high as 75 - 80%.
I don't know what sort of relationship FB has built with the carriers and what sort of percentage merchants using the billing system will ultimately end up with -- after all, both FB and the carriers will take a cut -- but I would be surprised if it isn't in line with the current percentages charged for carrier billing.
For virtual goods, carrier billing service providers claim the frictionless nature of the transaction and the reach (6 billion mobile subscribers globally) make up for the small margins.
Long term, of course, things could very well turn out differently.
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#17My biggest barrier to ever using something like this is trust. Facebook has screwed with privacy policies, and over-complicated application data-sharing settings so many times that I can't imagine funneling money through their platform. While I trust them with some of my personal information which has value, there's just no trust there for me when it comes to actual money. Psychologically, they rank below Paypal in m…
They have never screwed with money (eg. advertisers credit card numbers) nor with user passwords (like LinkedIn recently)
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#18It will be really interesting if this gets approved for the iOS app store, as it's in flagrant violation of the "must use iTunes payments for in-app purchases" rule. But what's Apple to do — no Facebook on iPhone? That would be insane.
In fact, Google also play the same trick - Android developers can only use Google for inapp purchase (digital item which is mainly used inapp).
Would be even more interesting if Google pull Facebook app out of the Android Play Store. (I bet Google would be very happy to do so)
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#19Can someone explain to me why FB chose to use credits over just actual money balances? Is it psychologically designed to get people more willing to fritter them in the same way it's easier to blow chips in a casino than real cash? Is it a way to funnel multiple currencies into one global currency? It just seems like an extra unnecessary convoluted layer to me. Having a credit balance over real money balance is unnerv…
Generally it's to avoid credit card charges that cuts into the margins of micro-transactions.
Whether the stored value is called "dollars" or "credits" would have no bearing on credit card charges.
Re: Facebook Launches Simple Mobile Payments
#20I'm curious about Square's reaction to this. It seems like people could literally start paying with Facebook at restaurants and bars. Now the charges are just part of the monthly phone bill instead of a monthly credit card bill. For that matter I wonder what implications this could have for credit card companies. Anyone know if, say, AT&T pays the same charge for accepting credit cards as small merchants?
This is so far from Square's current offering that I doubt it raised a single eye-brow.