Facebook Pay to launch for online retailers in August
Facebook has planned to enter into the online payments race with the launch of its Facebook Pay for online retailers outside its platform starting in August.
Facebook Pay was launched in 2019 but so far it has been restricted to the Facebook platform and its associated platforms like Whatsapp and the company plans to extend this into its other platforms like Instagram as well shortly. But as this develops, the company also plans to throw open its payments system to online retailers and e-commerce platforms which will put it in direct competition with other giants like Paypal and Amazon as the payments space heats up.
The digital payments industry is expected to grow exponentially in the coming months as the latest generation of users are being tuned to opt for cashless payments not only online but for offline purchases too. While this was going on, the pandemic also pushed the users to prefer digital payments as users were forced to stay indoors and make use of online digital payments even for their basic needs. This is why we have been seeing this industry grow very fast in all parts of the world during the pandemic period and investors are also piling into the industry in the hope of getting in early for the ride.
So, considering this, it should come as no surprise for anyone that Facebook is also pushing for the entry as it has the technology and the funds to enter this in a big way. Once Facebook Pay is embedded into a website, the users will be able to see this as an option along with existing payment systems like Paypal and Amazon Pay. This will also help Facebook to collect even more data from the users as they will gain information that not only tells them what users are interested in but also what they actually purchase, for how much and in what quantity and this data is likely to be used by Facebook for its analytics.
So far, it has not raised too many concerns but it all comes down to what Facebook will be using the data for and this will be keenly watched by those with privacy concerns. Facebook Pay will be using the cards and the bank accounts that the users would have already stored with Facebook and this makes it convenient for the users to make payments at online retailers and we will have to wait and see how users are going to welcome this move.
