I general I believe that people don't like to mix entirely different tasks.
Chatting with friends is not the same as buying stuff. It can really poison the atmosphere. The very act that you could send money makes you less engaged.
I don't know how much this applies to others but I really don't want the people that I transact with to have my facebook identity. Plus I don't want that track record following me around.
Unlike other communication that is more ephemeral, it is very likely that any monetary transaction will be permanently and irrevocably attached to the facebook identity.
That's fair ... but I assume you wouldn't have any problem with acknowledging that not everyone is going to place this same constraint on themselves yeah?
Didn't Instagram do this a while ago with a Buy button? I've never seen the button, but I'm also in Canada where the feature may not be rolled out yet.
For example, my roommates and I already have a facebook messenger group chat where we discuss everything. It would be great to have financial matters settled inline as well instead of separately.
Anything from chipping in for more cleaning products to splitting some pizzas to paying rent, things we already do but are complicated by collecting cash irl.
And I could extend this use case to all of the 1:1 conversations I have going on in facebook messenger. I'm not sure how it's not obviously useful unless you simply don't use facebook and don't know anyone who does, which describes none of the people I know in real life.
Youve been able to press the $ since 2015 to send money in group chats.
What it doesnt do that would be even better is include a clone of splitwise. To keep track of debt and settle it once a month would be handier than constantly throwing cash back and forth.
These two are a godsend for living with roommates (or BF/GF/Spouse/etc). You can sub FB Pay (or any other method, even cash) for Venmo but splitwise is awesome.
WeChat is the #1 application in China, which i think gets > 80% of usage, last I checked. WePay / mobile payments are _incredibly_ popular. Why _wouldn't_ they try to copy what is working in such a hugely popular app?
(I'm not saying that FB is using this to try to get into China, but more that the sample of "what's working in the industry" shouldn't be limited to just the US.)
It could still be backed by a blockchain - in fact, it would make sense to use some kind of hash chain, because then you have a verifiable and replayable ledger / event store / replication log / whatever.
It doesn't need to be distributed and/or use proof of work/stake to be blockchain.
I totally understand the blockchain apathy though.
I'm surprised they didn't have something like this sooner. I'm sure there are other tools, but the only one that I know of that people use to send payments to each other regardless of bank account is Venmo.
Being able to send money to other people easily is a huge part of living in a digital world. We may not trust FB with our payment data, but millions of people probably will.
Though nearly all of my frequent contacts have iPhones, none of them had Apple Cash set up before I sent them money with it. Venmo seems much more popular.
WeChat Pay is ubiquitous in China, and has largely replaced all cash use.
I'm surprised nobody in the US is worried about Facebook surveilling their financial transactions.
If you are just using WePay for buying food, as a customer you don't pay anything extra. For store owners, let's say a small shop that sells breakfast buns, the money to pay through WePay is usually sent directly to the owner's WePay wallet.
No, Paytm is like Paypal, anybody using it need to have Paytm account.
UPI is Unified Payment Interface; sort of RSS but two way, anybody can make client for it, UPI never holds money, Clients connect to user's bank accounts (any bank); client send & receive money to/from bank accounts only, but UPI streamlines this, its kind of hub, but money flows direct between two accounts.
Most banks offers their UPI clients in their main app. A user need a bank account & then he can either signup on his bank app like SBI HDFC AXIS or any common app like Google Pay, Phone Pay. The username is like email address, user@bank style. Only banks offer the part after @. Amazon uses @abl, phonepe uses @ybl.
Once you type in user@bank in any client, it fetches the current official name of user. UPI does not hold the info, but gets it in real time from @bank.
Oh, it's a Venmo competitor. I guess it's useful in that you already have your friends loaded in so you can know you're sending the right person money.
I don't like Venmo at all. It's hard to get money out and I'm always wary of bank account details stored by a startup. It's good to see this coming from FB and for this specific instance, a bad startup hopefully getting killed. For HN crowd which often defaults to hating FB, I'd say its a tool and like hammer it can be used for good and bad. The good things it has done is literally start and support revolutions, connect long lost friends, keep up with remote relatives and so on. I think their newsfeed algo sucks as they give far more weight to groups and funny video posts then actual friends news but hope that improves.
Maybe this is their effort to actually tell people about the service so they actually use it.
Your comment jogged a vague memory I had about this feature of FB Messenger, but it's not something your average person knows about. Also, I removed FB Messenger from my phone several years ago for being an unrepentant battery drainer.
I have FB Payments transactions between friends from August 2015. Looks like over 275 transactions total. Of every money transfer service, its the fastest bar none. It was shockingly good at what it did, given that it was an interface between legacy banks, I hope it stays as high quality.
If I stand in front of an ATM, and someone sends me money, I can take it out seconds later. Its a near instantaneous transfer. Zelle is about as fast, but facebook has been around longer, and has been instant since it launched, long before Venmo added it (and charges for it.) Zelle is also only instant within the Zelle network. Then again maybe every bank ive ever used with FB is within the FB network of instant banks?
I'm happy that there's more and more effort to help people pay each other without punishing fees or needing physical currency.
But ugh... FB Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Paypal... I hate thinking I'll need so many systems connected to my bank account to send or receive money. Feels like too much complexity and risk.
I know we're fatigued on "blockchain nonsense," but I'm eager and hopeful to get to a point where there's some sort of accepted (and widely used) international standard for digital currency. The traditional banking industry has just made it too hard and too expensive to move money.
This is one of those comments that is just so...American. I’m also an American, living in the UK, and the friction inherent in the USA banking system contributes to reverse culture shock. In pretty much any EU country I’ve been to you can pay anyone in seconds from any bank account, any amount, for free, just by knowing their account number and sort code. In the USA instead, banks spend millions trying to handle small pieces of paper (checks) with zero interest in modernising. Oh well.
Fair point that this may be a uniquely American problem, but it does point out that there's still a need for an international standard that works across the world. I'd like to be able to pay anyone worldwide without an unneeded intermediary like Facebook.
There are more and more services where you can pay in Bitcoin actually, and it works, although it's still very hard to use and the support is half-baked. Lightning network is not supported enough though, it needs more time.
I ordered a cell phone front screen from China by sending money to a strange web-site that I read about in Reddit and accepted Bitcoin and a Chinese payment system that I don't have access to, I payed with Bitcoin.
I wasn't sure if anything will arrive, but in 10 days I got a package, and the mobile service said that it was the first time they saw a replacement touch screen where the integrated fingerprint reader works as well.
Just trying to be Devil’s advocate here: So in the US, if I have an option to use Apple Pay where the company can not know my payment transaction details and whose business model is not ads-centric, why would I go for Facebook Pay? In Facebook Pay FAQ [1] they are not saying at all that the payment transaction data will not be used to target ads.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadChatting with friends is not the same as buying stuff. It can really poison the atmosphere. The very act that you could send money makes you less engaged.
1. see something you like
2. message seller and arrange meetup/pickup
3. upon inspection, pay via messenger
4. transaction done
Unlike other communication that is more ephemeral, it is very likely that any monetary transaction will be permanently and irrevocably attached to the facebook identity.
I am eager to see how it well it works in practice
For example, my roommates and I already have a facebook messenger group chat where we discuss everything. It would be great to have financial matters settled inline as well instead of separately.
Anything from chipping in for more cleaning products to splitting some pizzas to paying rent, things we already do but are complicated by collecting cash irl.
And I could extend this use case to all of the 1:1 conversations I have going on in facebook messenger. I'm not sure how it's not obviously useful unless you simply don't use facebook and don't know anyone who does, which describes none of the people I know in real life.
What it doesnt do that would be even better is include a clone of splitwise. To keep track of debt and settle it once a month would be handier than constantly throwing cash back and forth.
These two are a godsend for living with roommates (or BF/GF/Spouse/etc). You can sub FB Pay (or any other method, even cash) for Venmo but splitwise is awesome.
(I'm not saying that FB is using this to try to get into China, but more that the sample of "what's working in the industry" shouldn't be limited to just the US.)
At least it's not backed by some wasteful and unnecessary blockchain nonsense.
It doesn't need to be distributed and/or use proof of work/stake to be blockchain.
I totally understand the blockchain apathy though.
Being able to send money to other people easily is a huge part of living in a digital world. We may not trust FB with our payment data, but millions of people probably will.
I leave mine on Public too.
UPI is Unified Payment Interface; sort of RSS but two way, anybody can make client for it, UPI never holds money, Clients connect to user's bank accounts (any bank); client send & receive money to/from bank accounts only, but UPI streamlines this, its kind of hub, but money flows direct between two accounts.
Most banks offers their UPI clients in their main app. A user need a bank account & then he can either signup on his bank app like SBI HDFC AXIS or any common app like Google Pay, Phone Pay. The username is like email address, user@bank style. Only banks offer the part after @. Amazon uses @abl, phonepe uses @ybl.
Once you type in user@bank in any client, it fetches the current official name of user. UPI does not hold the info, but gets it in real time from @bank.
Venmo is owned by PayPal
e.g. 2016 article: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-facebook-messenger-to-send-a...
Is this a rebrand?
Your comment jogged a vague memory I had about this feature of FB Messenger, but it's not something your average person knows about. Also, I removed FB Messenger from my phone several years ago for being an unrepentant battery drainer.
This does appear to be a type of rebranding, but more importantly a push for Facebook to begin integration with other apps and possible third-parties.
How is it faster than other instant transfer services, like Zelle or Venmo?
But ugh... FB Pay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Paypal... I hate thinking I'll need so many systems connected to my bank account to send or receive money. Feels like too much complexity and risk.
I know we're fatigued on "blockchain nonsense," but I'm eager and hopeful to get to a point where there's some sort of accepted (and widely used) international standard for digital currency. The traditional banking industry has just made it too hard and too expensive to move money.
I ordered a cell phone front screen from China by sending money to a strange web-site that I read about in Reddit and accepted Bitcoin and a Chinese payment system that I don't have access to, I payed with Bitcoin.
I wasn't sure if anything will arrive, but in 10 days I got a package, and the mobile service said that it was the first time they saw a replacement touch screen where the integrated fingerprint reader works as well.
(for the record the web site is http://www.dragon-tt.com )
[1] https://pay.facebook.com/security-and-protection/
Just effectively.