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Facebook Introduces Payment System
An anonymous reader writes: Today Facebook announced a new feature for its Messenger services: the ability to send money to friends. The payment system will work by connecting debit cards from Visa or Mastercard — no credit cards, and no bank accounts. The company claims they aren't trying to make money on it, since it'd be such a small business compared to their ad revenue. "Once the $ button is tapped, users simply enter the dollar amount and hit Pay. The money is instantly taken from their debit account and delivered to the recipient's debit account. Facebook never holds the money, though the receiver's bank will usually take a few days to make the funds available as is standard. Both users see a confirmation message detailing the transfer status and time." Facebook says transaction information is encrypted, and users will protect their cards with a dedicated passcode (or fingerprint identification).
Considering how often I see people get hacked, what happens when random hacker breaks in and send multiple payments to his launderer? How exactly does this get refunded?
Great, another ACH debit mechanism, which means that when a fraudster empties a bank account, it stays emptied because there is nowhere the protection present that a credit card has in place.
I would place this on the heap of "run, don't walk away from", also-ran payment standards like CurrenC... avoid at all costs.
Now, if they had used the Visa/MC credit mechanism, things would be different. Fraud wouldn't completely destroy an end user's bank account.
THIS will tell Facebook who among your friends you are willing to send money to.
Let that sink in for a bit.
And giving money to someone is a pretty good sign that they are a real friend and not some fake facebook 'friend'.
Think about the value of THAT data to advertisers and also to Homeland security.
THOSE relationships will be sold off at a very high premium.