Facebook wants to handle your payments

We all know that Mark Zuckerberg sees Facebook as becoming the home of your world on the web, and the next step, once it’s become your number 1 social network, and your number 1 source for news is becoming your financial hub.

The social network began allowing users in the US to send money to each other through Messenger last year, and also tested a ‘Buy’ button for businesses in July 2015.

Facebook payments

Now, it’s been reported that Facebook is trialling payments in Thailand by letting users pay for products on Pages directly through a service called Qwik using their credit card, debit card or through online bank transfers. The company is reportedly testing the payment service with several top Facebook Pages in Thailand that have millions of page likes, and they plan to extend its trial to other countries in Southeast Asia over the coming months.

Long term it will be very interesting to see where this leads, by enabling payments Facebook will be going up against the likes of messaging apps like Line and WeChat, which are popular in Asia and support services like booking movie tickets and hailing cabs.

Facebook shopping

Facebook also has a solid platform for businesses to promote their products and interact with customers through Pages. Allowing these partners to make money through its own network, where shoppers can easily browse items and receive updates, could help Facebook grab a piece of the mobile payments pie in Asia and beyond. Watch this space…