Facebook Announces a Payments Feature for Its Messenger App - NYTimes.com

~Coincidentally, see Facebook Buys And Shuts Down Shopping Site TheFind To Boost Commerce In Ads (TechCrunch)

"Given Facebook’s huge size and reach, the introduction of its payments feature — which has been highly anticipated by Wall Street — is likely to cause tremors in the nascent market for instantly sending money to individuals, known as peer-to-peer payments.

And analysts said that if the payment system succeeded, Facebook would extend it to other types of purchases, such as consumers’ buying of products directly from advertisers. “Facebook could use this as a back door to get people’s debit cards to enable the buy button,” said Robert Peck, an Internet analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey."

Facebook Announces a Payments Feature for Its Messenger App - NYTimes.com