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Facebook Pay

xyst 5y ago
this service is just another data harvesting operation. avoid like the plague
nikolay 5y ago
I do use Facebook for donations as our nonprofit get 100% of the donated amount, i.e. Facebook eats the fees, and that's great. But I would never use a payment system from Facebook given the lack of customer support, crazy bans (locking you out of pages, which have nothing to do with your personal profile). They forced me to violate their own rules and create a fake account, which I use to manage my pages if they decide to temporarily ban me - until one day they decide the ban to be permanent!
typeofhuman 5y ago
Another payment app. Great.
deleted 5y ago
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civilized 5y ago
Why not Meta Pay? Applies to all the apps, sounds shmancier. Not that I want to help this company.
- excalibur 5y ago
  Metabucks
  - elpakal 5y ago
    Metastasis
    - labster 5y ago
      Metaphor ^
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I came here to say this. It's so fucking confusing now with "Facebook Pay on Instagram". WTF. Meta Pay is even a catchier name.
- jdrc 5y ago
bluedevil2k 5y ago
I read the entire article, but they don’t mention the details of how they’re going to make all your purchase history available to advertisers, and how they’re going to use this to track you around the internet even better to spam you with more ads of things you just bought. Maybe I just missed these details though…
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  From the "Security and Protection" sub page[1]. > What you buy is your business. Your transactions are confidential—and aren't shared to your Newsfeed—unless you choose to share them. So yeah. Confidentiality is defined as "not shared on your Newsfeed". Safe to assume Facebook is going to milk this data for all it's worth. There are also some other whoppers: > If there is an unauthorized Facebook Pay transaction on your account, customer support is always ready to help. Reach out via email 24 hours a day. All I can say is: I'll believe it when I see it. [1] https://pay.facebook.com/ca/security-and-protection/ https://pay.facebook.com/ca/security-and-protection/
  - civilized 5y ago
    They promise they won't force-publish your payments to your news feed. So generous!
    - callmeal 5y ago
      Only long enough for an accidental-on-purpose bug to expose them anyway. Either that, or a new setting that defaults to on.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > ... customer support is always ready to help... ... with a canned response saying "sorry, nothing we can do!" From the FAQ: > Is there Purchase Protection for online shopping? > Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don't qualify for Purchase Protection. Learn more about how Purchase Protection works on Facebook.
  - deleted 5y ago
wetpaws 5y ago
saradhi 5y ago
WOW. Available in Pakistan, while Stripe is yet to enter and PayPal gave up.
- gilgamesh327 5y ago
  It's also available in Iraq, a place where PayPal is yet to set foot, with the growing small business sector there, it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I remember being able to buy PIA tickets from USA in 2014 using my credit card somehow - I think some Pakistani bank had contracted with Verified by VISA
  - rgrmrts 5y ago
    Credit cards aren’t the problem. Just companies like stripe and PayPal don’t operate there. You can use Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, etc.
2ndseq 5y ago
Seems like a smart move seeing as the marketplace feature on FB is actually great.
- nmilo 5y ago
  It's not great, it just has the most users, so it's better just due to the network effect. From a usability standpoint it sucks.
annadane 5y ago
NO.
audeyisaacs 5y ago
I wonder how they're doing this in AU, can't see any info about APRA registration as an ADI/ERS user...
- zippercreatemy 5y ago
  Prepaid accounts, just like Bunnings, Target, Woolies, your favourite restaurant. You are not making a deposit as you don’t earn interest and you do not have FCS protection. Given the size of FB I don’t think this is a problem.
  - audeyisaacs 5y ago
    But because it's redeemable on demand for Australian currency shouldn't that make them a PPF provider? eg: PayPal is a registered PPF provider https://www.brightlaw.com.au/regulatory-challenges-for-purchased-payment-facilities/ https://www.brightlaw.com.au/regulatory-challenges-for-purch... https://www.apra.gov.au/sites/default/files/PayPal-auth-and-conditions-2006.pdf https://www.apra.gov.au/sites/default/files/PayPal-auth-and-...
LeoPanthera 5y ago
The small print is scary, at least compared to a service like PayPal. There's absolutely no consumer protection unless you're actually buying something from Facebook themselves, and for any kind of returns or refunds the advice given is "contact your bank". Yikes.
- mysterydip 5y ago
  At least it will be easier to detect scams on marketplace now. As soon as they ask you to pay with facebucks, you know you're going to lose your cash!
  - bitwidget 5y ago
- likpok 5y ago
  That's the same way that Venmo (or any of the other p2p payments) work (though I guess Venmo has a specific "opt in to some extra protection for a fee").
  - The_Colonel 5y ago
    Makes sense to me. Customer protection means bigger costs => bigger cuts on transactions. I would rather keep the cuts low.
- mikeiz404 5y ago
  For reference the relevant section is > How secure is Facebook Pay in online stores? > To keep your information secure, your debit and credit card numbers are encrypted for safe and secure storage. This information won’t be shared with sellers. > With Facebook Pay, you can create a PIN or use your device's face or fingerprint recognition to confirm payments. Learn how to set up a PIN for Facebook Pay. > For transactions you make with Facebook Pay, you’ll receive payment confirmation details in an email. If you see a transaction you don’t recognize, please contact your bank or financial institution. And > Is there Purchase Protection for online shopping? > Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don't qualify for Purchase Protection. Learn more about how Purchase Protection works on Facebook. https://pay.facebook.com/faqs/ https://pay.facebook.com/faqs/
uncomputation 5y ago
I can’t think of another company I’d want less to know my transaction and purchase history than FB/Meta. What happened to Zuckerberg’s shift to “video” or are they truly throwing anything and everything at the wall now?
- ma2rten 5y ago
  Facebook doesn't sell your information outright, Credit Card companies do.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Facebook selling my data doesn't concern me. Facebook having another set of datapoints on my personal life does.
    - ma2rten 5y ago
      But that is irrational. Selling data is worst possible thing a company can do, because anyone can buy the data including Facebook.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  fakebook is a worse offender when it comes to data collection
  - headsoup 5y ago
    Ignorance is bliss?
- darknavi 5y ago
  I agree. The terrible thing is is that it's the easiest solution for me and my friend group to send money via Messenger. The US has _really_ dropped the ball on any sort of easy-to-use, standardized money transfer. Zelle is the closest thing and it is a joke for every day usability.
user_named 5y ago
I guess they've reached Google-levels of product management when their payment system used across 4 products is named after only one of them. Another Hangouts in the making.
- jjulius 5y ago
  "We want to rebrand to Meta to help our image, but let's name the payment app that'll be used across all of Meta after the specific brand that's been the focus of all of that bad publicity."
  - thematrixturtle 5y ago
    Meta has no brand recognition though (outside our narrow geek circles). Google doesn't have an "Alphabet Pay" either.
    - toomanydoubts 5y ago
      Seems to be the reason. In Brazil, everyone knows what Facebook is. Very, very, very few people would know what is Meta. How ironic is it that you need to move from a brand name to another because you have bad reputation, but still have to use the old name because even with bad reputation, it's still more trustable to handle money than your no-reputation new brand?
      - metabro 5y ago
        Brazil has WhatsApp pay
        toomanydoubts 5y ago
        Hmm, I hadn't realized it was branded differently in Brazil. Still seems to align with the same idea, since WhatsApp brand recognition is at least on par with Facebook in Brazil(also, I believe most people are aware that WhatsApp is made by FB, but I guess very few recognize Meta as of now).
mttjj 5y ago
> For extra security, set up a PIN, face ID or fingerprint to confirm a payment at checkout. This doesn’t sound appealing to me. They’re surely storing this biometric data on a server somewhere, right? I use FaceID or my Apple Watch to pay with ApplePay all the time but my biometrics never leave my device. I don’t follow Facebook all that closely (never used any of its services). Do they have other services that use (require?) face or fingerprint identification? Or is Facebook Pay a sly way for them to start harvesting this data?
myaltacct415 5y ago
Facebook should have dominated the payments space. It failed. Every few years they announce new payments products and strategy. Nothing fundamentally changes.
- civilized 5y ago
  Does anyone remember the previous moves? I only remember Libra, which I never took seriously because crypto.
shrvtv 5y ago
The company, which hasn't been able to figure out the UI hell of the core product for more than a decade now must never be trusted with processing payments. Especially when you know where the data will end up, what will happen to it next and how the company makes money (98.5% from targeted ads)
- poopypoopington 5y ago
  they've been processing payments for over a decade
  - praseodym 5y ago
    By relying on Adyen to accept payments (https://www.adyen.com/press-and-media/2022/adyen-publishes-h2-2021-shareholder-letter-and-interim-financial-results https://www.adyen.com/press-and-media/2022/adyen-publishes-h... and search for Facebook)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- anderspitman 5y ago
  I'm confident the UI for their customers works great. Problem is you're not the customer.
  - sidcool 5y ago
    Yep. OP and all of us are not the customers, but the product.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    > Problem is you're not the customer. What do you mean by this?
    - hinoki 5y ago
      Meta Ads Manager has a much higher app review score than the Facebook app ;)
EGreg 5y ago
Why can’t crypto be like that? Centralized Social networks like Faceboon and WhatsApp can roll out a payment system nearly overnight and have it accepted at millions of merchants. Crypto after 10 years is hardly accepted anywhere…
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jjulius 5y ago
  Facebook Pay is just a payment system that was established within the confines and regulations of an existing monetary system. "Crypto" is not that.
  - wraptile 5y ago
    yet.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjulius 5y ago
      Okay?
  - EGreg 5y ago
    "just"? When people start keeping their balances INSIDE the system, it becomes its own currency. Like when people pay with PayPal without cashing out. They can print more of it internally, and you wouldn't know. They can have fractional reserves, etc. WhatsApp and Facebook have huge adoption. By contrast, after 10 years, crypto is nowhere near being a "peer to peer cash system".
jjtheblunt 5y ago
I wonder if this relates to the huge earnings miss.
- kadoban 5y ago
  Seems unlikely, it takes quite a while to put something like this together.
  - eclipxe 5y ago
    It's been around for 3 years https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-...
zakki 5y ago
So it is not MetaPay?
deleted 5y ago
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xiphias2 5y ago
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.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Gigachad 5y ago
  In an ideal world I'd love to see social media apps be able to loosely hook in to banking apps. So facebook messenger would handle requests and you would tap "send" in facebook messanger which would open your bank app with something like "Send $10 to facebook user ___ and let facebook confirm transaction success" so facebook never has to hold your money or make transactions, but you can make payment requests in messenger. Although I do remember that the US doesn't really have a good/fast way to make instant bank to bank transactions so that could be an issue.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    The US is expecting to release this in 2023. https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about.html https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....
  - zhte415 5y ago
    PSDR2 (EU) and Open Banking (UK) regulations have this as a possibility. I'm not up to speed on how fast implementation of the 'L2' has been, but this is a very real use case. And no need to open your banking app since delegation to your 3rd party app (Facebook in this case).
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    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 tax is not triggered.
hestefisk 5y ago
It seems to be using normal debit / credit card payments behind the scenes, so it’s not going to eat the banks’ lunch too much just yet. What would be really good is if they could do A2A payments and circumvent the Mastercard / Visa merchant payment rails and fees. That could be a game changer.
- hoppla 5y ago
  Sending money from a debit account is one thing, but where does the money go? An arbitrary number on a web page like PayPal, or would you get the money directly in your bank account?
keyle 5y ago
So,... NotMetaPay? Seems like this is 3 years behind everyone else... Which is a bigger issue than the branding itself. I couldn't find one aspect that made it have a competitive advantage over already established brands.
- eclipxe 5y ago
  This has been around for about 3 years - https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-...
- 4rb1t 5y ago
  its leveraging their existing user base. they dont need to run a $10 offer ot get them to install or use fb pay. low acquisition cost.
underyx 5y ago
> Facebook Pay is an easy, secure way to pay in more places than ever Amazing! I love paying!
- cyral 5y ago
  > in more places than ever? In more than other methods? https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - darknavi 5y ago
    I link this XKCD at least once a month. I know it's a trope but it seems to be so relevant in so many ways these days.
- beeskneecaps 5y ago
  This isn't one of those pay to pay apps now, is it?
ohmanjjj 5y ago
Should have bought fast.co
gordon_freeman 5y ago
I thought they had this for years. Not sure why it’s on HN today? Is there something new they launched in payments?
- aembleton 5y ago
  I've never seen Facebook payments before, here in the UK. Maybe its country specific.
sidcool 5y ago
Why isn't it pay.meta.com?
spoonjim 5y ago
Apropos of nothing, I find it hilarious to see how much diversity has been crammed into this ad page. The hero image is a multiethnic androgynous sk8r and I see one mostly occluded white-presenting person among the 7 photographs.
nmridul 5y ago
India is not in the list. But whatsapp payments are already available in India. So is Facebook pay something very different from whatsapp pay ? It's confusing since the page says "Facebook Pay is a seamless, secure way to pay on the apps you already use". And whatsapp is listed as one app. Maybe it's entirely different from UPI based Whatsapp pay.
spoonjim 5y ago
I think this will be successful on Instagram because there is a TON of e-commerce happing on Instagram with awkward mechanics like linking to an Etsy or Shopify store in the image caption. If a vendor like this: https://www.instagram.com/summergirldesigns https://www.instagram.com/summergirldesigns could just allow "Add to Cart" for each of her items, it would probably result in more sales.
- cyral 5y ago
  This has actually been a thing on Instagram for a while now. There is an entire shopping tab on the app. Not sure how that differs from Facebook Pay though.
nmridul 5y ago
India is not in the list. But whatsapp payments are already available in India. So is Facebook pay something very different from whatsapp pay ? It's confusing since the page says "Facebook Pay is a seamless, secure way to pay on the apps you already use". And whatsapp is listed as one app. Maybe it's entirely different from UPI based Whatsapp pay [] https://pay.facebook.com/availability/ https://pay.facebook.com/availability/
- metabro 5y ago
  You are right. Upi is something unique to India so WhatsApp pay in India can’t leverage the Fb pay infrastructure. However, it can elsewhere including the us.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    > can’t leverage the Fb pay infrastructure According to “How it Works”, it supports multiple payment methods like PayPal & Credit cards - I don’t see why UPI couldn’t just be another option on the list specifically for India. * https://pay.facebook.com/how-it-works/ https://pay.facebook.com/how-it-works/
- shubham_sinha 5y ago
  WhatsApp pay is just another UPI app
LegitShady 5y ago
On firefox, clicking this link loads the page and somehow disables the back button to get back to HN. It does not load in a new tab. Anyone else have this experience?
- aembleton 5y ago
  Works for me on Firefox 97
yalogin 5y ago
So this is not a payment/purchase option on Facebook but they want to be Apple Pay? I mean do they want me to support it in my app for example?
deleted 5y ago
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throwawayNIL 5y ago
pimlottc 5y ago
Off topic, but I really hate this trend of using animate-in transitions for _every_ _single_ _section_ of the page. Why I do always have to scroll into a half a window's worth of blank background before the content appears with some cutesy slide-in animation? I could perhaps forgive it if it was just badly implemented lazy-loading images but it also does this for simple section titles and body text as well. It ends up taking twice the time to read since you have to keep waiting for text to appear. It also looks quite bizarre if you refresh the page while scrolled to the bottom and then scroll back up. To be clear, this is not a complaint about tying dynamic effects to scroll position. Apple does those all the time [0][1][2] but at least you will never have a big gap of blank content at the bottom of the page, usually there is fresh content continously immediately visible as you are scrolling. I don't even mind if there is a bit of initial page-loading animation at the start, as long as it's just once. Does anyone really prefer reading pages like this? It just seems very disrespectful of the user's time, forcing them to continuously wait just to read your promotional copy. 0: https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/ 1: https://www.apple.com/watch/ https://www.apple.com/watch/ 2: https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/ https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/
- ovao 5y ago
  In this case there’s no value added, no. That’s okay in some cases, but the purpose of this page is to communicate the value of Facebook Pay, and this doesn’t really help. And it’s badly done too: kinda janky on some components and easing is weirdly inconsistent. Visual stability is actually kinda underrated.
  - pimlottc 5y ago
    “Visual stability” is a good way to talk about it, thanks for the term. I think part of the issue is the unpredictability of not knowing where and when the next bit of text is going to appear :P
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  Dude, we are hype and cool and we have the power of JS and CSS transitions at our fingertips. Why should we sacrifice our amazing experience that all end-users love just to please some purist-wannabe power user who enjoys to read content without hindrances, delays and amazing visual effects based on carefully-calculated bezier curves by our best-of-class team?
hammyhavoc 5y ago
Why would anybody want this versus existing alternatives? OK, the USP of sending money to your Facebook friends... well, if they're my friends, we've been sending money to each other for years when splitting bills etc. It's a solved problem.
- aembleton 5y ago
  I don't know. I went to the theatre last week with some friends. One of them bought the tickets and I didn't have her bank details. We organised everything over messenger. With this Facebook Pay, I could probably just have paid her from within messenger. Instead I had to open my bank app and have it generate a link, copy that and paste it into messenger. The end result is the same; and with the link it would go straight into her account, but its just a bit more clumsy - using two apps, when with Facebook Pay one will do.
  - hammyhavoc 5y ago
    We've got PAYM in the UK, it works with just a mobile number: https://paym.co.uk/ https://paym.co.uk/ Figured this kind of thing would be common globally considering how far behind the technological curve the UK tends to be.
mdonahoe 5y ago
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 service in order to complete the loop on the ad->purchase funnel.
- can16358p 5y ago
  This. I've actually bought a lot of stuff from IG ads (and there's no other platform that I've ever clicked an ad let alone buying), but I agree with the purchase (which is off-IG anyway) to be of more friction. This can solve this problem by integrating payment into IG.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  A big reason for fb to care is that it makes it easier to attribute the purchase to the add (so they can claim they should get paid more by the advertiser), which can be particularly useful to them on iOS where they can have problems tracking people from one app (where they see the ad) to an app where they pay for the thing.
- elwell 5y ago
  > friction It would be cool to be able to impulse donate as easily as you can click "Like" when you see some ad for some cause you care about.
- artdigital 5y ago
  Anecdotally, most of the ads for stuff I see on Instagram are scam. The products are real but the websites they were sold on just copied the images. Saw the pattern over and over again and once got burnt for trying to buy something that looked ok. (Thank god PayPal got me my money back eventually) I don’t trust things I see in Instagram ads anymore, even if the product looks interesting
- varispeed 5y ago
  Pretty much any gadget I found interesting turned out to be sold for 5-20x price of what you could easily find on Aliexpress.
jhatemyjob 5y ago
I like how they didn't call it Meta Pay.
kornhole 5y ago
I want friction when I pay for things. Why make it easier for others to get my money?
- aembleton 5y ago
  Because it will improve conversion of adverts which are the lifeblood of Meta.
hericium 5y ago
Does Facebook, as a product, even has userbase for this? I find it weird that they used this branding. For some time now, FB has the "old people social media" label. Also would they create a new brand (or MetaPay or whatever), some people might not connect it to Zuck's trash mentality, morality and overall creepiness. I wouldn't be surprised if folks working at Meta consider themselves the good guys, like Google cultists do. But I was under the impression that FB->Meta name change was due to public's completely trashed opinion on Facebook.
- qualudeheart 5y ago
  This would fit in nicely with the FB marketplace and help it become more like WeChat. I have family that uses WeChat. In China it`s an all in one app. The payment features are very convenient.
- fourseventy 5y ago
  Ya they only have billions of users, probably not a big enough userbase to support this feature /s
- slopirate 5y ago
  I think you need to step outside of your bubble. More than half the population of Earth logged into a FB product at least once last month. They don't use it out of love or pity for Zuckerberg. They use it because they fucking love to.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    And even if they don't love it they use it because they get subjective value out of that usage as these people have lots of contacts (or maybe groups) there. I don't use FB anymore. For more than two years now. But I still keep the account as I have exactly one use case (just anecdata): There are some very good groups on Facebook for genealogy. Here I can get help when I get stuck again. So if I continue again with the genealogy efforts I will certainly post there again from time to time. There are few to no comparable places on the net where I could find the appropriate help.
  - 5y ago
d--b 5y ago
Send money to friends is definitely a feature that facebook should have implemented early. Now it feels very late in that “pay” game. It makes them look like the google+ of payments.
_jab 5y ago
Anyone else finding that clicking on this link overrides their browser's "back" button? It's just grayed out after clicking on the link. Might well be browser-specifc - I'm on Firefox. I'm skeptical FB is so sketchy as to do this intentionally, but I've also never seen this behavior before.
- darknavi 5y ago
  Edge (chromium) here. When I click on the link from HN I can correctly navigate backwards.
- joecool1029 5y ago
  Not happening here on Firefox, I could see it potentially happening if you use Facebook Container extension to 'wall off' facebook properties from normal browsing profile. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...
dartharva 5y ago
How does this work? Is it a wallet app? Does it act as an interface to your bank's payment network? The kind of vague useless "explanation"[1] getting parroted in the "How it works" page is something I haven't seen anyone do for a long time. If you don't want to tell your consumers clearly, why even bother with such bullshit? [1]: Facebook Pay is a seamless and secure way to make payments on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Enter your payment card or account information once and then use Facebook Pay to make purchases, send money or donate within the apps. A PIN or biometrics can be added to secure individual payments. Facebook Pay is also a way to view payment history, manage payment information and access customer support. Facebook Pay is currently rolling out in select countries.
JamesAdir 5y ago
Judging by the short video at the top - is this service aimed only at women?
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  That video indeed looks like it's targeting women in specific, yeah.
deleted 5y ago
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Gentil 5y ago
I am very genuinely curious about whether we disagree on the "Facebook is a bad company" part or not. And if you think FB is not a bad company. Can the below examples convince you? If the below examples cannot convince you. Where do you disagree and where do you think I am wrong? I know this could be way too real for some folks to answer. Especially for folks who use FB for a living (marketing etc) and for FB employees. So hopefully I can encourage some genuine conversations. :) [1] - How toxic instagram is for teens - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/facebook-documents-show-how-toxic-instagram-is-for-teens-wsj.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/facebook-documents-show-how-... [2] - I have blood on my hands - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook... [3] - Facebook knew about Russian interference in 2016 US election - https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7749740/facebook-knew-russian-meddling-before-donald-trump-election/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7749740/facebook-knew-russian-... [4] - Facebook Shadow tracking through FB SDK - https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/How%20Apps%20on%20Android%20Share%20Data%20with%20Facebook%20-%20Privacy%20International%202018.pdf https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/201... [5] - Cambridge analytica scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... [6] - Facebook misled EU about Whatsapp acquisition - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/facebook-fined-e110-million-for-misleading-eu-over-whatsapp-deal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/facebook-fined-e... [7] Mark lied to Congress (This is the only case I am not sure about AFAIK. So correct me if possible please) - https://thehill.com/policy/technology/390530-dem-lawmaker-says-facebook-may-have-lied-about-data https://thehill.com/policy/technology/390530-dem-lawmaker-sa... Update: Just got my first down voter. It would be great if whoever down voted could say why. Thanks.
hit8run 5y ago
Thanks but no. Facebook and Instagram are already deleted on my phone. WhatsApp soon to follow
sid-ant 5y ago
Interestingly India is not on the list. While one can use UPI to make payments via WA, their market share is less than a percentage. Having said that,I hope this takes off. All of my friends prefer Instagram as our primary messaging app since it takes a username and not a phone number to text someone. It would be helpful, if we could makes payments there.
Gortal278 5y ago
The "I would never trust fb with my purchases" crowd are not included in the target audience. Hearing them say they wouldn't use it is redundant. This is a killer product, it is just 3 years too late. I have no idea why this took so long. It has potential, but will it succeed? Hard to tell, they have lots of competition
failedartifact 5y ago
Under the UK varient of the Facebook Pay site, the Instagram advert has the incorrect decimal separater: using the comma used with Euro's and not the dot/period. £16,50 UK uses commas, but only to separate by thousounds. This makes £16,50 seem like it was going to be £16,500 instead.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jdrc 5y ago
took them long enough. How does this work within apple's walled garden, is apple entitled to a cut? I thought they could use their reach to get people to sidestet apple's requirements.
mnd999 5y ago
Hell no
ppsreejith 5y ago
From a quick Google search, Facebook pay was launched in 2019. Has anything changed?
eoinboylan 5y ago
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.
- micael_dias 5y ago
  Revolut is pretty big in Europe but I guess not that ubiquitous yet
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    I don't use Revolut, as I don't trust any financial company that can't make money (which is apparently a very old-fashioned view).
- daqhris 5y ago
  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.
davidgerard 5y ago
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.
varispeed 5y ago
Availability shows Afghanistan. How did they get approval for that? Does it mean mums on Facebook can now financially support Taliban and other groups?
JaceLightning 5y ago
Does anyone care about Facebook anymore?
jmrm 5y ago
It's surprise me how in the US and other countries there isn't any movement like Bizum in Spain, which you can pay in stores and give or receive money with other people only interchanging a phone number linked with a bank account. That service is maintained with practically all banks in the country, valid to use with any other person who also have an account, doesn't have any transaction or a monthly/periodical fee, can't roll back payments easily if you screw up, and some other advantages.
- vinay427 5y ago
  There was a thread on HN a few days ago [1] that discussed a similar idea. The prevailing notion seems to be that the far larger number of independent banks in the US makes coordinating on this sort of system far more challenging. In my experience, countries with a lower number of banks (<20 or so?) tend to be farther ahead on systems that require first-party cooperation. However, I wouldn't say there "isn't any movement" in the US. To clarify, what I noted above obviously doesn't preclude or justify the absence of a comparable system that supports at least a subset of US banks. Zelle may one day gain wider adoption in this fashion, and third-party approaches (such as Venmo) already handle most private transactions somewhat reasonably despite relying on ACH transfers for funding rather than first-party bank support. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30259183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30259183
  - noneeeed 5y ago
    There's a classic Planet Money episode all about how behind the US is with inter-bank transfers. The huge number of often small banks in the US did seem to be a very significant part of the problem. Here in the UK we have many fewer banks, which makes it possible to build out the infrastructure that allows almost instantaneous transactions (rarely more than 15 seconds). As far as I'm aware support for the Faster Payments system is universal. I think that would have been much harder if there had been a large number of small banks without the technical capability to roll out such a system.
tut-urut-utut 5y ago
I couldn’t find info if it will support cross country payments to _any_ supporter country. Being able to send and receive money to and from friends and family without fees and using real exchange rates could potentially be the only reason to sign in to Facebook.
joelbondurant1 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
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xyst 5y ago

this service is just another data harvesting operation. avoid like the plague

I do use Facebook for donations as our nonprofit get 100% of the donated amount, i.e. Facebook eats the fees, and that's great. But I would never use a payment system from Facebook given the lack of customer support, crazy bans (locking you out of pages, which have nothing to do with your personal profile). They forced me to violate their own rules and create a fake account, which I use to manage my pages if they decide to temporarily ban me - until one day they decide the ban to be permanent!

typeofhuman 5y ago

Another payment app. Great.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

civilized 5y ago

Why not Meta Pay? Applies to all the apps, sounds shmancier. Not that I want to help this company.

excalibur 5y ago
Metabucks
- elpakal 5y ago
  Metastasis
  - labster 5y ago
    Metaphor ^
kingcharles 5y ago
I came here to say this. It's so fucking confusing now with "Facebook Pay on Instagram". WTF. Meta Pay is even a catchier name.
jdrc 5y ago

bluedevil2k 5y ago

I read the entire article, but they don’t mention the details of how they’re going to make all your purchase history available to advertisers, and how they’re going to use this to track you around the internet even better to spam you with more ads of things you just bought. Maybe I just missed these details though…

AlexandrB 5y ago
From the "Security and Protection" sub page[1]. > What you buy is your business. Your transactions are confidential—and aren't shared to your Newsfeed—unless you choose to share them. So yeah. Confidentiality is defined as "not shared on your Newsfeed". Safe to assume Facebook is going to milk this data for all it's worth. There are also some other whoppers: > If there is an unauthorized Facebook Pay transaction on your account, customer support is always ready to help. Reach out via email 24 hours a day. All I can say is: I'll believe it when I see it. [1] https://pay.facebook.com/ca/security-and-protection/ https://pay.facebook.com/ca/security-and-protection/
- civilized 5y ago
  They promise they won't force-publish your payments to your news feed. So generous!
  - callmeal 5y ago
    Only long enough for an accidental-on-purpose bug to expose them anyway. Either that, or a new setting that defaults to on.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > ... customer support is always ready to help... ... with a canned response saying "sorry, nothing we can do!" From the FAQ: > Is there Purchase Protection for online shopping? > Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don't qualify for Purchase Protection. Learn more about how Purchase Protection works on Facebook.
- deleted 5y ago

wetpaws 5y ago

saradhi 5y ago

WOW. Available in Pakistan, while Stripe is yet to enter and PayPal gave up.

gilgamesh327 5y ago
It's also available in Iraq, a place where PayPal is yet to set foot, with the growing small business sector there, it'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.
selimthegrim 5y ago
I remember being able to buy PIA tickets from USA in 2014 using my credit card somehow - I think some Pakistani bank had contracted with Verified by VISA
- rgrmrts 5y ago
  Credit cards aren’t the problem. Just companies like stripe and PayPal don’t operate there. You can use Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, etc.

2ndseq 5y ago

Seems like a smart move seeing as the marketplace feature on FB is actually great.

nmilo 5y ago
It's not great, it just has the most users, so it's better just due to the network effect. From a usability standpoint it sucks.

annadane 5y ago

NO.

audeyisaacs 5y ago

I wonder how they're doing this in AU, can't see any info about APRA registration as an ADI/ERS user...

zippercreatemy 5y ago
Prepaid accounts, just like Bunnings, Target, Woolies, your favourite restaurant. You are not making a deposit as you don’t earn interest and you do not have FCS protection. Given the size of FB I don’t think this is a problem.
- audeyisaacs 5y ago
  But because it's redeemable on demand for Australian currency shouldn't that make them a PPF provider? eg: PayPal is a registered PPF provider https://www.brightlaw.com.au/regulatory-challenges-for-purchased-payment-facilities/ https://www.brightlaw.com.au/regulatory-challenges-for-purch... https://www.apra.gov.au/sites/default/files/PayPal-auth-and-conditions-2006.pdf https://www.apra.gov.au/sites/default/files/PayPal-auth-and-...

LeoPanthera 5y ago

The small print is scary, at least compared to a service like PayPal. There's absolutely no consumer protection unless you're actually buying something from Facebook themselves, and for any kind of returns or refunds the advice given is "contact your bank". Yikes.

mysterydip 5y ago
At least it will be easier to detect scams on marketplace now. As soon as they ask you to pay with facebucks, you know you're going to lose your cash!
- bitwidget 5y ago
likpok 5y ago
That's the same way that Venmo (or any of the other p2p payments) work (though I guess Venmo has a specific "opt in to some extra protection for a fee").
- The_Colonel 5y ago
  Makes sense to me. Customer protection means bigger costs => bigger cuts on transactions. I would rather keep the cuts low.
mikeiz404 5y ago
For reference the relevant section is > How secure is Facebook Pay in online stores? > To keep your information secure, your debit and credit card numbers are encrypted for safe and secure storage. This information won’t be shared with sellers. > With Facebook Pay, you can create a PIN or use your device's face or fingerprint recognition to confirm payments. Learn how to set up a PIN for Facebook Pay. > For transactions you make with Facebook Pay, you’ll receive payment confirmation details in an email. If you see a transaction you don’t recognize, please contact your bank or financial institution. And > Is there Purchase Protection for online shopping? > Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don't qualify for Purchase Protection. Learn more about how Purchase Protection works on Facebook. https://pay.facebook.com/faqs/ https://pay.facebook.com/faqs/

uncomputation 5y ago

I can’t think of another company I’d want less to know my transaction and purchase history than FB/Meta. What happened to Zuckerberg’s shift to “video” or are they truly throwing anything and everything at the wall now?

ma2rten 5y ago
Facebook doesn't sell your information outright, Credit Card companies do.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Facebook selling my data doesn't concern me. Facebook having another set of datapoints on my personal life does.
  - ma2rten 5y ago
    But that is irrational. Selling data is worst possible thing a company can do, because anyone can buy the data including Facebook.
paulpauper 5y ago
fakebook is a worse offender when it comes to data collection
- headsoup 5y ago
  Ignorance is bliss?
darknavi 5y ago
I agree. The terrible thing is is that it's the easiest solution for me and my friend group to send money via Messenger. The US has _really_ dropped the ball on any sort of easy-to-use, standardized money transfer. Zelle is the closest thing and it is a joke for every day usability.

user_named 5y ago

I guess they've reached Google-levels of product management when their payment system used across 4 products is named after only one of them. Another Hangouts in the making.

jjulius 5y ago
"We want to rebrand to Meta to help our image, but let's name the payment app that'll be used across all of Meta after the specific brand that's been the focus of all of that bad publicity."
- thematrixturtle 5y ago
  Meta has no brand recognition though (outside our narrow geek circles). Google doesn't have an "Alphabet Pay" either.
  - toomanydoubts 5y ago
    Seems to be the reason. In Brazil, everyone knows what Facebook is. Very, very, very few people would know what is Meta. How ironic is it that you need to move from a brand name to another because you have bad reputation, but still have to use the old name because even with bad reputation, it's still more trustable to handle money than your no-reputation new brand?
    - metabro 5y ago
      Brazil has WhatsApp pay
      - toomanydoubts 5y ago
        Hmm, I hadn't realized it was branded differently in Brazil. Still seems to align with the same idea, since WhatsApp brand recognition is at least on par with Facebook in Brazil(also, I believe most people are aware that WhatsApp is made by FB, but I guess very few recognize Meta as of now).

mttjj 5y ago

> For extra security, set up a PIN, face ID or fingerprint to confirm a payment at checkout. This doesn’t sound appealing to me. They’re surely storing this biometric data on a server somewhere, right? I use FaceID or my Apple Watch to pay with ApplePay all the time but my biometrics never leave my device. I don’t follow Facebook all that closely (never used any of its services). Do they have other services that use (require?) face or fingerprint identification? Or is Facebook Pay a sly way for them to start harvesting this data?

myaltacct415 5y ago

Facebook should have dominated the payments space. It failed. Every few years they announce new payments products and strategy. Nothing fundamentally changes.

civilized 5y ago
Does anyone remember the previous moves? I only remember Libra, which I never took seriously because crypto.

shrvtv 5y ago

The company, which hasn't been able to figure out the UI hell of the core product for more than a decade now must never be trusted with processing payments. Especially when you know where the data will end up, what will happen to it next and how the company makes money (98.5% from targeted ads)

poopypoopington 5y ago
they've been processing payments for over a decade
- praseodym 5y ago
  By relying on Adyen to accept payments (https://www.adyen.com/press-and-media/2022/adyen-publishes-h2-2021-shareholder-letter-and-interim-financial-results https://www.adyen.com/press-and-media/2022/adyen-publishes-h... and search for Facebook)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anderspitman 5y ago
I'm confident the UI for their customers works great. Problem is you're not the customer.
- sidcool 5y ago
  Yep. OP and all of us are not the customers, but the product.
- paulcole 5y ago
  > Problem is you're not the customer. What do you mean by this?
  - hinoki 5y ago
    Meta Ads Manager has a much higher app review score than the Facebook app ;)

EGreg 5y ago

Why can’t crypto be like that? Centralized Social networks like Faceboon and WhatsApp can roll out a payment system nearly overnight and have it accepted at millions of merchants. Crypto after 10 years is hardly accepted anywhere…

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jjulius 5y ago
Facebook Pay is just a payment system that was established within the confines and regulations of an existing monetary system. "Crypto" is not that.
- wraptile 5y ago
  yet.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjulius 5y ago
    Okay?
- EGreg 5y ago
  "just"? When people start keeping their balances INSIDE the system, it becomes its own currency. Like when people pay with PayPal without cashing out. They can print more of it internally, and you wouldn't know. They can have fractional reserves, etc. WhatsApp and Facebook have huge adoption. By contrast, after 10 years, crypto is nowhere near being a "peer to peer cash system".

jjtheblunt 5y ago

I wonder if this relates to the huge earnings miss.

kadoban 5y ago
Seems unlikely, it takes quite a while to put something like this together.
- eclipxe 5y ago
  It's been around for 3 years https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-...

zakki 5y ago

So it is not MetaPay?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

xiphias2 5y ago

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.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Gigachad 5y ago
In an ideal world I'd love to see social media apps be able to loosely hook in to banking apps. So facebook messenger would handle requests and you would tap "send" in facebook messanger which would open your bank app with something like "Send $10 to facebook user ___ and let facebook confirm transaction success" so facebook never has to hold your money or make transactions, but you can make payment requests in messenger. Although I do remember that the US doesn't really have a good/fast way to make instant bank to bank transactions so that could be an issue.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The US is expecting to release this in 2023. https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about.html https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....
- zhte415 5y ago
  PSDR2 (EU) and Open Banking (UK) regulations have this as a possibility. I'm not up to speed on how fast implementation of the 'L2' has been, but this is a very real use case. And no need to open your banking app since delegation to your 3rd party app (Facebook in this case).
- xiphias2 5y ago
  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 tax is not triggered.

hestefisk 5y ago

It seems to be using normal debit / credit card payments behind the scenes, so it’s not going to eat the banks’ lunch too much just yet. What would be really good is if they could do A2A payments and circumvent the Mastercard / Visa merchant payment rails and fees. That could be a game changer.

hoppla 5y ago
Sending money from a debit account is one thing, but where does the money go? An arbitrary number on a web page like PayPal, or would you get the money directly in your bank account?

keyle 5y ago

So,... NotMetaPay? Seems like this is 3 years behind everyone else... Which is a bigger issue than the branding itself. I couldn't find one aspect that made it have a competitive advantage over already established brands.

eclipxe 5y ago
This has been around for about 3 years - https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-...
4rb1t 5y ago
its leveraging their existing user base. they dont need to run a $10 offer ot get them to install or use fb pay. low acquisition cost.

underyx 5y ago

> Facebook Pay is an easy, secure way to pay in more places than ever Amazing! I love paying!

cyral 5y ago
> in more places than ever? In more than other methods? https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- darknavi 5y ago
  I link this XKCD at least once a month. I know it's a trope but it seems to be so relevant in so many ways these days.
beeskneecaps 5y ago
This isn't one of those pay to pay apps now, is it?

ohmanjjj 5y ago

Should have bought fast.co

gordon_freeman 5y ago

I thought they had this for years. Not sure why it’s on HN today? Is there something new they launched in payments?

aembleton 5y ago
I've never seen Facebook payments before, here in the UK. Maybe its country specific.

sidcool 5y ago

Why isn't it pay.meta.com?

spoonjim 5y ago

Apropos of nothing, I find it hilarious to see how much diversity has been crammed into this ad page. The hero image is a multiethnic androgynous sk8r and I see one mostly occluded white-presenting person among the 7 photographs.

nmridul 5y ago

India is not in the list. But whatsapp payments are already available in India. So is Facebook pay something very different from whatsapp pay ? It's confusing since the page says "Facebook Pay is a seamless, secure way to pay on the apps you already use". And whatsapp is listed as one app. Maybe it's entirely different from UPI based Whatsapp pay.

spoonjim 5y ago

I think this will be successful on Instagram because there is a TON of e-commerce happing on Instagram with awkward mechanics like linking to an Etsy or Shopify store in the image caption. If a vendor like this: https://www.instagram.com/summergirldesigns https://www.instagram.com/summergirldesigns could just allow "Add to Cart" for each of her items, it would probably result in more sales.

cyral 5y ago
This has actually been a thing on Instagram for a while now. There is an entire shopping tab on the app. Not sure how that differs from Facebook Pay though.

nmridul 5y ago

metabro 5y ago
You are right. Upi is something unique to India so WhatsApp pay in India can’t leverage the Fb pay infrastructure. However, it can elsewhere including the us.
- yunohn 5y ago
  > can’t leverage the Fb pay infrastructure According to “How it Works”, it supports multiple payment methods like PayPal & Credit cards - I don’t see why UPI couldn’t just be another option on the list specifically for India. * https://pay.facebook.com/how-it-works/ https://pay.facebook.com/how-it-works/
shubham_sinha 5y ago
WhatsApp pay is just another UPI app

LegitShady 5y ago

On firefox, clicking this link loads the page and somehow disables the back button to get back to HN. It does not load in a new tab. Anyone else have this experience?

aembleton 5y ago
Works for me on Firefox 97

yalogin 5y ago

So this is not a payment/purchase option on Facebook but they want to be Apple Pay? I mean do they want me to support it in my app for example?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwawayNIL 5y ago

pimlottc 5y ago

Off topic, but I really hate this trend of using animate-in transitions for _every_ _single_ _section_ of the page. Why I do always have to scroll into a half a window's worth of blank background before the content appears with some cutesy slide-in animation? I could perhaps forgive it if it was just badly implemented lazy-loading images but it also does this for simple section titles and body text as well. It ends up taking twice the time to read since you have to keep waiting for text to appear. It also looks quite bizarre if you refresh the page while scrolled to the bottom and then scroll back up. To be clear, this is not a complaint about tying dynamic effects to scroll position. Apple does those all the time [0][1][2] but at least you will never have a big gap of blank content at the bottom of the page, usually there is fresh content continously immediately visible as you are scrolling. I don't even mind if there is a bit of initial page-loading animation at the start, as long as it's just once. Does anyone really prefer reading pages like this? It just seems very disrespectful of the user's time, forcing them to continuously wait just to read your promotional copy. 0: https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/ 1: https://www.apple.com/watch/ https://www.apple.com/watch/ 2: https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/ https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/

ovao 5y ago
In this case there’s no value added, no. That’s okay in some cases, but the purpose of this page is to communicate the value of Facebook Pay, and this doesn’t really help. And it’s badly done too: kinda janky on some components and easing is weirdly inconsistent. Visual stability is actually kinda underrated.
- pimlottc 5y ago
  “Visual stability” is a good way to talk about it, thanks for the term. I think part of the issue is the unpredictability of not knowing where and when the next bit of text is going to appear :P
toomanydoubts 5y ago
Dude, we are hype and cool and we have the power of JS and CSS transitions at our fingertips. Why should we sacrifice our amazing experience that all end-users love just to please some purist-wannabe power user who enjoys to read content without hindrances, delays and amazing visual effects based on carefully-calculated bezier curves by our best-of-class team?

hammyhavoc 5y ago

Why would anybody want this versus existing alternatives? OK, the USP of sending money to your Facebook friends... well, if they're my friends, we've been sending money to each other for years when splitting bills etc. It's a solved problem.

aembleton 5y ago
I don't know. I went to the theatre last week with some friends. One of them bought the tickets and I didn't have her bank details. We organised everything over messenger. With this Facebook Pay, I could probably just have paid her from within messenger. Instead I had to open my bank app and have it generate a link, copy that and paste it into messenger. The end result is the same; and with the link it would go straight into her account, but its just a bit more clumsy - using two apps, when with Facebook Pay one will do.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  We've got PAYM in the UK, it works with just a mobile number: https://paym.co.uk/ https://paym.co.uk/ Figured this kind of thing would be common globally considering how far behind the technological curve the UK tends to be.

mdonahoe 5y ago

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 service in order to complete the loop on the ad->purchase funnel.

can16358p 5y ago
This. I've actually bought a lot of stuff from IG ads (and there's no other platform that I've ever clicked an ad let alone buying), but I agree with the purchase (which is off-IG anyway) to be of more friction. This can solve this problem by integrating payment into IG.
dan-robertson 5y ago
A big reason for fb to care is that it makes it easier to attribute the purchase to the add (so they can claim they should get paid more by the advertiser), which can be particularly useful to them on iOS where they can have problems tracking people from one app (where they see the ad) to an app where they pay for the thing.
elwell 5y ago
> friction It would be cool to be able to impulse donate as easily as you can click "Like" when you see some ad for some cause you care about.
artdigital 5y ago
Anecdotally, most of the ads for stuff I see on Instagram are scam. The products are real but the websites they were sold on just copied the images. Saw the pattern over and over again and once got burnt for trying to buy something that looked ok. (Thank god PayPal got me my money back eventually) I don’t trust things I see in Instagram ads anymore, even if the product looks interesting
varispeed 5y ago
Pretty much any gadget I found interesting turned out to be sold for 5-20x price of what you could easily find on Aliexpress.

jhatemyjob 5y ago

I like how they didn't call it Meta Pay.

kornhole 5y ago

I want friction when I pay for things. Why make it easier for others to get my money?

aembleton 5y ago
Because it will improve conversion of adverts which are the lifeblood of Meta.

hericium 5y ago

Does Facebook, as a product, even has userbase for this? I find it weird that they used this branding. For some time now, FB has the "old people social media" label. Also would they create a new brand (or MetaPay or whatever), some people might not connect it to Zuck's trash mentality, morality and overall creepiness. I wouldn't be surprised if folks working at Meta consider themselves the good guys, like Google cultists do. But I was under the impression that FB->Meta name change was due to public's completely trashed opinion on Facebook.

qualudeheart 5y ago
This would fit in nicely with the FB marketplace and help it become more like WeChat. I have family that uses WeChat. In China it`s an all in one app. The payment features are very convenient.
fourseventy 5y ago
Ya they only have billions of users, probably not a big enough userbase to support this feature /s
slopirate 5y ago
I think you need to step outside of your bubble. More than half the population of Earth logged into a FB product at least once last month. They don't use it out of love or pity for Zuckerberg. They use it because they fucking love to.
- sdoering 5y ago
  And even if they don't love it they use it because they get subjective value out of that usage as these people have lots of contacts (or maybe groups) there. I don't use FB anymore. For more than two years now. But I still keep the account as I have exactly one use case (just anecdata): There are some very good groups on Facebook for genealogy. Here I can get help when I get stuck again. So if I continue again with the genealogy efforts I will certainly post there again from time to time. There are few to no comparable places on the net where I could find the appropriate help.
- 5y ago

d--b 5y ago

Send money to friends is definitely a feature that facebook should have implemented early. Now it feels very late in that “pay” game. It makes them look like the google+ of payments.

_jab 5y ago

Anyone else finding that clicking on this link overrides their browser's "back" button? It's just grayed out after clicking on the link. Might well be browser-specifc - I'm on Firefox. I'm skeptical FB is so sketchy as to do this intentionally, but I've also never seen this behavior before.

darknavi 5y ago
Edge (chromium) here. When I click on the link from HN I can correctly navigate backwards.
joecool1029 5y ago
Not happening here on Firefox, I could see it potentially happening if you use Facebook Container extension to 'wall off' facebook properties from normal browsing profile. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...

dartharva 5y ago

How does this work? Is it a wallet app? Does it act as an interface to your bank's payment network? The kind of vague useless "explanation"[1] getting parroted in the "How it works" page is something I haven't seen anyone do for a long time. If you don't want to tell your consumers clearly, why even bother with such bullshit? [1]: Facebook Pay is a seamless and secure way to make payments on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Enter your payment card or account information once and then use Facebook Pay to make purchases, send money or donate within the apps. A PIN or biometrics can be added to secure individual payments. Facebook Pay is also a way to view payment history, manage payment information and access customer support. Facebook Pay is currently rolling out in select countries.

JamesAdir 5y ago

Judging by the short video at the top - is this service aimed only at women?

lpcvoid 5y ago
That video indeed looks like it's targeting women in specific, yeah.

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Gentil 5y ago

I am very genuinely curious about whether we disagree on the "Facebook is a bad company" part or not. And if you think FB is not a bad company. Can the below examples convince you? If the below examples cannot convince you. Where do you disagree and where do you think I am wrong? I know this could be way too real for some folks to answer. Especially for folks who use FB for a living (marketing etc) and for FB employees. So hopefully I can encourage some genuine conversations. :) [1] - How toxic instagram is for teens - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/facebook-documents-show-how-toxic-instagram-is-for-teens-wsj.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/facebook-documents-show-how-... [2] - I have blood on my hands - https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook... [3] - Facebook knew about Russian interference in 2016 US election - https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7749740/facebook-knew-russian-meddling-before-donald-trump-election/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7749740/facebook-knew-russian-... [4] - Facebook Shadow tracking through FB SDK - https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/How%20Apps%20on%20Android%20Share%20Data%20with%20Facebook%20-%20Privacy%20International%202018.pdf https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/201... [5] - Cambridge analytica scandal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... [6] - Facebook misled EU about Whatsapp acquisition - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/facebook-fined-e110-million-for-misleading-eu-over-whatsapp-deal/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/facebook-fined-e... [7] Mark lied to Congress (This is the only case I am not sure about AFAIK. So correct me if possible please) - https://thehill.com/policy/technology/390530-dem-lawmaker-says-facebook-may-have-lied-about-data https://thehill.com/policy/technology/390530-dem-lawmaker-sa... Update: Just got my first down voter. It would be great if whoever down voted could say why. Thanks.

hit8run 5y ago

Thanks but no. Facebook and Instagram are already deleted on my phone. WhatsApp soon to follow

sid-ant 5y ago

Interestingly India is not on the list. While one can use UPI to make payments via WA, their market share is less than a percentage. Having said that,I hope this takes off. All of my friends prefer Instagram as our primary messaging app since it takes a username and not a phone number to text someone. It would be helpful, if we could makes payments there.

Gortal278 5y ago

The "I would never trust fb with my purchases" crowd are not included in the target audience. Hearing them say they wouldn't use it is redundant. This is a killer product, it is just 3 years too late. I have no idea why this took so long. It has potential, but will it succeed? Hard to tell, they have lots of competition

failedartifact 5y ago

Under the UK varient of the Facebook Pay site, the Instagram advert has the incorrect decimal separater: using the comma used with Euro's and not the dot/period. £16,50 UK uses commas, but only to separate by thousounds. This makes £16,50 seem like it was going to be £16,500 instead.

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jdrc 5y ago

took them long enough. How does this work within apple's walled garden, is apple entitled to a cut? I thought they could use their reach to get people to sidestet apple's requirements.

mnd999 5y ago

Hell no

ppsreejith 5y ago

From a quick Google search, Facebook pay was launched in 2019. Has anything changed?

eoinboylan 5y ago

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.

micael_dias 5y ago
Revolut is pretty big in Europe but I guess not that ubiquitous yet
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  I don't use Revolut, as I don't trust any financial company that can't make money (which is apparently a very old-fashioned view).
daqhris 5y ago
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.

davidgerard 5y ago

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.

varispeed 5y ago

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

JaceLightning 5y ago

Does anyone care about Facebook anymore?

jmrm 5y ago

It's surprise me how in the US and other countries there isn't any movement like Bizum in Spain, which you can pay in stores and give or receive money with other people only interchanging a phone number linked with a bank account. That service is maintained with practically all banks in the country, valid to use with any other person who also have an account, doesn't have any transaction or a monthly/periodical fee, can't roll back payments easily if you screw up, and some other advantages.

vinay427 5y ago
There was a thread on HN a few days ago [1] that discussed a similar idea. The prevailing notion seems to be that the far larger number of independent banks in the US makes coordinating on this sort of system far more challenging. In my experience, countries with a lower number of banks (<20 or so?) tend to be farther ahead on systems that require first-party cooperation. However, I wouldn't say there "isn't any movement" in the US. To clarify, what I noted above obviously doesn't preclude or justify the absence of a comparable system that supports at least a subset of US banks. Zelle may one day gain wider adoption in this fashion, and third-party approaches (such as Venmo) already handle most private transactions somewhat reasonably despite relying on ACH transfers for funding rather than first-party bank support. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30259183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30259183
- noneeeed 5y ago
  There's a classic Planet Money episode all about how behind the US is with inter-bank transfers. The huge number of often small banks in the US did seem to be a very significant part of the problem. Here in the UK we have many fewer banks, which makes it possible to build out the infrastructure that allows almost instantaneous transactions (rarely more than 15 seconds). As far as I'm aware support for the Faster Payments system is universal. I think that would have been much harder if there had been a large number of small banks without the technical capability to roll out such a system.

tut-urut-utut 5y ago

I couldn’t find info if it will support cross country payments to _any_ supporter country. Being able to send and receive money to and from friends and family without fees and using real exchange rates could potentially be the only reason to sign in to Facebook.

joelbondurant1 5y ago

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