Facebook has been known for its highly functional R&D team, which keeps on surprising us with new features every now and then. The new addition to this list of features is their ‘Facebook-Pay’ option. This can be a great tool but on the other hand, seems quite odd coupled with Social media application.
The Facebook-Pay feature would be launched for Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram. Out of all these, the feature will be rolled onto Facebook and Messenger within the week itself for the US market.
The feature can be used for paying in such events as a fundraiser, in-game purchases, event tickets, person-to-person payments on Messenger and purchases from select Pages and businesses on Facebook Marketplace. The feature will support diverse payment options ranging from credit and debit cards to even payment by Paypal.
“Over time, we plan to bring Facebook Pay to more people and places, including for use across Instagram and WhatsApp,” Deborah Liu, Vice President, Marketplace and Commerce at Facebook, said in a statement late Tuesday.
There are serious issues and discussions going on the security of the feature as Facebook is not exactly the one we trust blindfolded. The company claims its feature to be secured and has a strong defense against any kind of known threat.
“With Facebook Pay, we’re continuing to invest in security. We designed Facebook Pay to securely store and encrypt your card and bank account numbers, perform anti-fraud monitoring on our systems to detect unauthorized activity and provide notifications for account activity” Said Liu.
There are various security options such as biometric security or password protection within the app itself for the security of the Facebook-Pay feature.
The steps required to set up the Facebook-Pay option for FacebookS and Messenger are as follows:
Step 1: Login into your Facebook account or Messenger app after filling your credentials.
Step 2: Go to the ‘Settings option’ and open it.
Step 3: Locate the Facebook-Pay option under the tabs and click on it.
Step 4: Set-up the payment options by adding payment methods and every other required detail.
Step 5: Your Facebook-Pay is now activated and you can use it for the next time you are making a payment.
The feature will soon make its way to other apps owned by Facebook such as Whatsapp and Instagram. But there is time for that and for now we can enjoy the features on the Facebook platform only.
There is a shred of doubt on the actual usability of the whole payment system clubbed with social media apps. We will get to know after some time how the payment system actually performed in the real-world and what kind of response it got from the audience.