GLOBAL – Social media giant, Facebook Inc has unveiled a new group, the Facebook Financial (F2), to run its payment projects across all its social media platforms.
Facebook’s F2 will be responsible for managing Facebook Pay, the universal payments plan which will run across all its apps, and will also pursue commerce opportunities across all the apps in the company.
While presenting the company’s Q2 2020 results in July, Zuckerberg had expressed his excitement about the commercial aspect of the company’s messaging apps.
Zuckerberg said that the trend will likely grow as payment options are rolled out in the company’s apps.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the group will be headed by David Marcus, co-creator of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project and head of Novi, the division building a digital wallet for the new crypto.
Marcus will also be involved in WhatsApp’s payments efforts in India and Brazil, and he will be assisted by former Upwork Chief Executive Officer, Stephane Kasriel who will serve as a payments vice president.
“We have a lot of commerce stuff going on across Facebook, It felt like it was the right thing to do to rationalize the strategy at a company level around all things payments,” Marcus said.
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has on many occasions announced plans to integrate all the company’s messaging services and this is only the latest effort to bring all of Facebook’s apps and products closer together.
F2 Group President, Marcus, explained that with users making more purchases across Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, the company’s advertising revenue is expected to grow.
The top priority to be handled by the group is activating the payment solutions in India and Brazil, where regulations have stalled the company’s efforts to make WhatsApp a foremost destination for commerce.
The F2 ship Captain, Marcus, is a payments expert who joined Facebook in 2014 from PayPal Holdings Inc. where he was president.
He ran Facebook Messenger for four years before he was appointed to take charge of Libra and get the cryptocurrency running for cross border payments.
Liked this article? Subscribe to DealStreet Africa News, our regular email newsletter with the latest news, deals and insights from Africa’s business, economy and more. SUBSCRIBE HERE