Facebook has announced its new group, Facebook Financial. Facebook Financial intends to pursue payments and commerce opportunities, and is to be led by David Marcus, co-creator of the Libra project and former President of payments giant, PayPal. Facebook Financial will be responsible for all payment projects, including Facebook Pay, as was launched in November 2019.
Facebook has also hired former Upwork Inc. Chief Executive Officer, Stephane Kasriel, to serve as Facebook Financial’s Vice President, under Marcus.
This brings to light Facebook’s latest attempt to converge and immerse its individual products and apps. It is no secret that Facebook now owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Over the past few years, Facebook has rebranded these apps, and others under its wing, in an attempt to make this known to the general public.
It is believed that if users are able to make purchases on Whatsapp, Messenger and Instagram, then Facebook’s advertising will increase substantially, and users will spend more time on the company-owned apps.
Mark Zuckerberg said at Facebook’s second-quarter earnings call last month, that he was “quite excited” by the integration of e-commerce solutions, inside of messaging apps.
Facebook Financial also includes Novi, a new digital wallet being built for the Libra network, that Marcus will continue to run. It appears that Facebook intends to eventually incorporate the Libra coin into its apps, enabling users to make purchases with their Libra across the various apps owned by Facebook.
Feature image by Simon Steinberger from Pixabay
