
Facebook Pay - tosh
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/11/simplifying-payments-with-facebook-pay/
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umeshunni
Hasn't this existed for a while?

e.g. 2016 article: [https://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-facebook-messenger-to-
send-a...](https://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-facebook-messenger-to-send-and-
receive-money/)

Is this a rebrand?

~~~
basch
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.

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sdinsn
> Of every money transfer service, its the fastest bar none

How is it faster than other instant transfer services, like Zelle or Venmo?

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basch
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?

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toddmorey
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.

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nemesisj
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.

~~~
toddmorey
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.

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ativzzz
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.

~~~
kibibu
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.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
What transaction rates does WeChat Pay charge and how do they compare to
Stripe/BrainTree/PayPal?

~~~
ryanchankh
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.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
that’d be illegal in the US, right?

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jandrese
Seems like it's just Paypal but on Facebook.

At least it's not backed by some wasteful and unnecessary blockchain nonsense.

~~~
supermatt
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.

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scarejunba
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.

~~~
sytelus
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.

~~~
the_narrator
> I'm always wary of bank account details stored by a startup

Venmo is owned by PayPal

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sarcasmatwork
Why would anyone use this? Does anyone trust it?

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hombre_fatal
I'd use it.

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.

~~~
basch
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.

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gordon_freeman
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.

[1] [https://pay.facebook.com/security-and-
protection/](https://pay.facebook.com/security-and-protection/)

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greenpizza13
Absolutely not.

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Four8Five
This makes sense if you ever used Facebook Marketplace. Usually in those
transactions, most people use Venmo, Cash app, or Apple Pay.

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m0xte
That and the telescreen can fuck off. Zuck has done enough damage to society.
Even Cthulhu is shaking his head at him.

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davidgerard
This totally doesn't mean they're giving up on Libra!

Just effectively.

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Copenjin
No.

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seppin
Copying WeChat, which isn't a good thing btw.

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s3r3nity
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.)

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seppin
Because it's not good that one company knows everything about your life. If I
have to keep explaining why I won't bother.

