Hacked Facebook Messenger Reveals Payment Capabilities
Facebook appears to be headed in the direction of allowing person-to-person payments via their phone and messaging app.
Andrew Aude, a computer science major from Stanford, discovered the possibility of payments through the Facebook Messenger app while using Cycript, an iOS hacking tool. While the option to do so isn’t yet available, it seems all Facebook needs to do is activate that section of the code to allow the transactions.
After his discovery, Aude posted screenshots of the code on Twitter. He also determined each transaction will cost Facebook roughly $0.40 to $0.50.
@Facebook Messenger has P2P payments coming. @SquareCash style. pic.twitter.com/3NuXuuaMMC
— Andrew Aude (@andyplace2) October 4, 2024
As of now it’s unclear whether or not Facebook will charge its users for the feature but a small fee could certainly be added down the road.
While Facebook hasn’t made any public announcements regarding their new payment systems, some people have noted it wasn’t entirely unexpected.
Earlier this year, in June, they hired former PayPal president David Marcus.
According to Josh Constine, of TechCrunch.com, Aude said that the transaction is as simple as hitting a button to open the payment window, enter the amount you wish to send, and then send it.
All of the transactions would be private and kept off of the News Feed.
Regarding the transfer of money, Aude says “the mechanism it uses is to debit one account, and then use some magical means to look up the bank account number of the recipient and ACH (Automated Clearing House) deposit it, Identical to Square Cash.”
Facebook is likely entering the payment world as a means to differentiate itself from other social networking apps like Google Hangouts, Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, and Kik, though some messaging apps are moving to integrate payments as well.