Facebook Inc. today pulled back the curtains on Facebook Pay, a new feature that will serve as an overarching payment processing system across its social platforms. 

The system expands upon the existing financial tools the company provided before. Facebook’s namesake social network enables users to send money to contacts, donate to fundraising campaigns and buy goods on Facebook Marketplace. Now, consumers will gain the ability to send funds to each other via WhatsApp and Instagram too.

The expanded platform support is accompanied by changes to the user experience. When a consumer links their bank card or PayPal account to Facebook in one of the company’s apps, they will be presented with the option to have their payment details synced across its other social media platforms. There will be extra security mechanisms as well to protect users from scammers.

“We designed Facebook Pay to securely store and encrypt your card and bank account numbers, perform anti-fraud monitoring on our systems to detect unauthorized activity and provide notifications for account activity,” Deborah Liu, Facebook’s vice president of marketplace and commerce, wrote in the announcement. “You can also add a PIN or use your device biometrics, such as touch or face ID recognition, for an extra layer of security when sending money or making a payment.”

Liu stressed that Facebook won’t store users’ biometric data. She further noted that Facebook Pay is separate from the planned Calibra digital wallet, which will enable users to transfer funds using the social network’s Libra cryptocurrency.

Libra has attracted criticism from regulators worldwide over concerns it could harm the competition and be abused by financial criminals. In August, Bloomberg reported that the European Union had started probing whether the cryptocurrency violates any antitrust laws. The growing scrutiny around Libra led Mastercard Inc., Visa Inc., PayPal Inc. and other early backers of the project to withdraw their support in recent weeks.

The controversy around the cryptocurrency doesn’t appear to have hampered Facebook Pay. PayPal, Visa and Mastercard all support the new system along with payment processing provider Stripe Inc., which was also among the financial technology providers that pulled out of the project after initially pledging their support. 

Facebook Pay will become available on Facebook and Messenger later this week for users in the U.S. The feature is slated to arrive on the social network’s other social platforms further down the road. 

Photo: Unsplash