Facebook Messenger Adds Money Sending Feature

If you're a Facebook user, there's a good chance you access the social network primarily through your mobile device — and that you're likely friends with your real-life friends, making Facebook Messenger a convenient way to call or message someone. Facebook wants to extend the usefulness of its Messenger service, however, and it'll be doing so by adding a money-sending feature. Such functionality won't be arriving for every user today, but when it does arrive it'll be a simplistic way to send someone cash.

Today Facebook announced the arrival of the feature, saying it'll only be available for users in the United States, and that it'll be rolling out to those users "over the coming months", meaning it might be a while before you see it come your way. With it, and using Messenger, a Facebook user can proceed to send a message to a friend the same way they'd send any message.

Instead of sending a regular message, however, the user will hit the "$" icon and type in the dollar amount they want to send to someone. From there, the user will just hit "Pay" and add their banking card information for the account from which they want the money transferred. This works the opposite way, as well, with users obviously being able to receive money from a Facebook friend.

In order to get that money from a friend, a user will need to open the message from which they've been sent money, and will likewise need to enter a banking card's information. The money will be deposited in that bank account, then, which can take up to three days like any other deposit (the length of time depends on the bank itself). The transfer, however, is immediate. The banking information only needs to be entered the first time, at which point it will be saved.

SOURCE: Facebook Newsroom