Facebook Set to Launch Mobile Payments

According to an article on CNBC, Andrew Aude, a student at Stanford, uncovered code in Facebook’s Messenger app, which indicates that Facebook may be set to launch mobile payments in the near future. In fact, a note in the code that Aude uncovered states: "In the short term, [Facebook] will only support single payment attachment. Multiple payment attachments will be supported in the future.”

The speculation that Facebook will launch a mobile payment tool had been gathering prior to Aude’s discovery. On its second-quarter earnings call, Facebook announced that it was exploring mobile payments. In addition, Facebook recently hired the former President of Pay Pal.

With millions of people using Facebook, entry into mobile payments is another way to keep users actively engaged in the Facebook world, a key advantage for Facebook. Additionally, mobile payments could be a potential revenue source depending on whether Facebook would charge for the capability.

As a Facebook user, a few key questions for the team at Facebook include:

1.     Whether or not purchases would be shared on your news feed

2.     What safeguards would they have in place to protect payment information

3.     What would be the cost structure (if any)

 

Facebook looks set to launch mobile payments

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102062404#.