Facebook Launches Free Friend-to-friend Payments Through Messenger

The long-awaited moment has finally arrived. After replacing different services used for texting, photo sharing, and video calling, Facebook is ready to challenge PayPal and other money transferring services with its Facebook Messenger

.

Now your favorite Facebook Messenger won’t be just used for sending texts and cute smileys. Facebook is now going to provide you a way to settle the friendly debts right from the chat-box.

Today Facebook announced a new payments feature for Facebook Messenger. This service will let you connect your Facebook Messenger with your Mastercard or Visa debit card. By clicking on a simple “$” button, now you can send money to your Facebook friends on the desktop, Android and, iOS. This service won’t cost you extra money transferring charges.

e rival friendly payment app Venmo, owned by eBay’s PayPal unit, charges 3% extra commission fee on each transfer. Facebook will do the same for free.

Facebook said in a news release:

“Today we’re adding a new feature in Messenger that gives people a more convenient and secure way to send or receive money between friends. This feature will be rolling out over the coming months in the US.”

This service will be first rolled out in US in upcoming months and then to the rest of the world.  Right now, users can add their card info. The money is transferred instantly. Depending upon your banks and other transfer services, it may take on to three business days to make the money available.

To send money to a friend:

Start messaging a friend. Tap the $ button and type the required amount. Tap the Pay and add the debit card details to complete the transaction.

To receive the money from a friend:

Open the message with payment and click Add Cart on the message. Add your own debit card info to accept the money.

Facebook is expecting this service to become a huge success because of its vast user-base of 500 million active Facebook Messenger users.