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Facebook Pay

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Re: Facebook Pay

#201

Post by daqhris »

eoinboylan wrote: post #187

This will be massive in Europe for WhatsApp. Just went on a ski trip with people from a number of European countries. All use WhatsApp but we didn’t have a single app to send money to each other. PayPal was the only option but most people didn’t have that so we used cash.

Right! Most of EU countries have one dominant e-payments provider. Some of these national fintech startups are owned by or have links with local banks. Hard to find a product that is 100% usable in every EU nation, besides traditional US players. Once, you cross borders, you have to adapt. This Facebook initiative has the potential to unify a dislocated ecosystem and facilitate users' convenience and adoption of P2P digital payments.

Some risks that would put a halt to this? The EU regulatory bodies in Brussels. They'll find any reason(s) to put some breaks/guardrails and slow down the exponential adoption of FB Pay. Not being too pessimistic, but their mutual relation isn't in the best shape nowadays.

Re: Facebook Pay

#202

Post by tentacleuno »

behnamoh wrote: post #63
IgorPartola wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook had a multimillion dollar business (yes, million, not trillion, but this was solid) in the form of FB marketplace. That was the one part of FB that was super useful and if they hooked it up with a secure payment system that worked with these kinds of transactions it could have been amazing. Instead they squandered it on ads, as they always do. The platform is now unusable.

Is there any good alternative to FB MarketPlace these days? Craigslist is just too old fashioned and most people I know don't use it anymore.

Freecycle[0]?

[0]: https://freecycle.org

Re: Facebook Pay

#203

Post by varispeed »

mdonahoe wrote: post #98

I've been waiting for this for 3 years. After using Instagram a bunch, I found the targeted ads got pretty good: most were for things I was interested in, such as tech gadgets or crafts for my kids. However, clicking on an ad and buying something was so much higher friction than the rest of the mobile Instagram experience that I often just gave up. Since then, I assumed FB must be working on some sort of payment serv…

Pretty much any gadget I found interesting turned out to be sold for 5-20x price of what you could easily find on Aliexpress.

Re: Facebook Pay

#204

Post by davidgerard »

Facebook Pay is literally just Messenger Pay which (later Libra co-founder) David Marcus put into place in 2015, and which approximately no bugger used.

(I mean, there are some users - including comments on this page - and they like it. But it never took off.)

They rebranded it as Facebook Pay in late 2019. Morning Brew said at the time: "If Libra is the Thanksgiving turkey you tried deep frying but caught on fire, Facebook Pay is the backup rotisserie chicken."

But it's not actually a payment system. It's just a Facebook-y front end, but the actual payments are handled by Mastercard, Visa, PayPal or your bank.

I believe Facebook Pay is part of the WhatsApp Pay trial in Brazil - though that uses the local PIX fast payment system to reach the bank/credit-card backends.

It's not clear why this is hitting HN again. But Facebook Pay is a thing that a few people use, and which basically hasn't been killed yet 'cos Facebook really wants to get into payments, somehow.

Re: Facebook Pay

#205

Post by nicoburns »

twelve40 wrote: post #128
toomuchtodo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US instant payments drop in 2023. Definitely sucks it took this long, but it’ll be ubiquitous and replaces ACH. https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....

since we are talking consumers here, what would it look like to a regular user? would I have to walk around asking people for their account numbers and routing numbers to FedNow them the money?

In the UK (and I believe all of Europe), the system is indeed based on bank account numbers and sort codes, but popular banking apps like Monzo will do WhatsApp-style contact lists, where banking details of your phone contacts are synced and you can just pick them from the list (note: account number are not considered secret sensitive information). Banking apps will usually save someone’s details for future usage.

Re: Facebook Pay

#206

Post by varispeed »

Availability shows Afghanistan. How did they get approval for that? Does it mean mums on Facebook can now financially support Taliban and other groups?

Re: Facebook Pay

#207

Post by lma21 »

varispeed wrote: post #203
mdonahoe wrote: post #98

I've been waiting for this for 3 years. After using Instagram a bunch, I found the targeted ads got pretty good: most were for things I was interested in, such as tech gadgets or crafts for my kids. However, clicking on an ad and buying something was so much higher friction than the rest of the mobile Instagram experience that I often just gave up. Since then, I assumed FB must be working on some sort of payment serv…

Pretty much any gadget I found interesting turned out to be sold for 5-20x price of what you could easily find on Aliexpress.

It's also because most ship from aliexpress directly to your address. We stopped noticing that all of the mundane gadgets out there cost in the range of 12.99 to 19.99, whereas you buy 50 for 200 on Aliexpress

Re: Facebook Pay

#208

Post by xiphias2 »

asd88 wrote: post #143
xiphias2 wrote: post #40

This should have happened for a long time. Facebook's properties are the places where my friends naturally ask for money from me to help. Even with all the negativity I see here in other comments, this is the natural way for Facebook to grow, not trying to compete with the Federal Reserve.

What you described has been available for a long time. The old Facebook Pay (i.e. the ability to send payments to your friends via ACH) has been available in Messenger for at least 5 years (probably even longer). This new Facebook Pay seems to just add an easy way to link payment methods to your account and pay merchants on Facebook/Instagram.

Isn't ACH a US specific thing?

For sending money inside a country is easy generally, international payments are much harder.

Re: Facebook Pay

#209

Post by [deleted] »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #197
xiphias2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Mallers (CEO of Strike) gave a presentation about the Lightning network as the open protocol for international fiat debit payments, and multiple Facebook managers were on that meeting. Now that Cashapp integrated sending money with it, Strike can be connected with US Chase bank account, the race for embracing the open protocol is on. The cool thing with USD payments over lightning network is that capital gains t…

> The cool thing with USD payments over lightning network is that capital gains tax is not triggered. This is a bug, not a feature, to the US government.

[deleted]
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