Facebook Messenger has announced the new feature “Split payments”, which will help us share bill costs and ad expenses for free through a group chat.
The new feature will launch next week for a small group of users in the US.
“If you’ve had trouble dividing up (and getting reimbursed) for group dinners, shared household expenses, or even monthly rent, everything will be easier.”
The Messenger Team
But how will it work?
In order to split payments from the application, users must click the “Start” button within a group chat or directly in the Payment Center in Messenger.
From there, you can choose the dollar amount to divide an invoice in equal parts or modify the amount of the contribution for each person.
Following this, you will have to enter a personalized message and confirm the account details in Facebook Pay so that the request is sent and visible in the group chat thread that was chosen.
Venmo-like QR codes opened the door to other initiatives
For a few months, Messenger users in the US already have the possibility of using QR codes similar to Venmo, to make person-to-person payments through their application.
These codes allow anyone to send or request money through Facebook Pay.
The most interesting thing about this initiative is that it is not necessary to become Facebook friends to be able to transfer money.
In addition, these codes do not require downloading any external payment application, or any type of contact entry or loading process to be used.
The only condition set by this new function was that users must be 18 years old and have a Visa or Mastercad credit card or a PayPal account.
This became the perfect prelude to the implementation of this new “Split Payments” initiative, within the application.
Facebook Pay: a comprehensive platform
Facebook Pay was launched in 2019, as a way to unify payments from all Facebook applications into one simple and uniform experience for fundraisers, donations, game purchases, person-to-person payments, and e-commerce.
This launch also facilitated the payment experience among platform users and increased security thanks to the use of a PIN or biometric data.
In addition, more controls were added to the Facebook Pay configuration to manage credentials and be able to see the history of transactions in one place.
Thus, Facebook, which has already processed payments since 2007, went from being a cryptocurrency system with its own digital currency to having a payment network with integrated processes and already regulated local systems.