Facebook’s one billion users may have another reason to stay loyal to the social networking giant.
According to a source in the financial industry with ties to Facebook, the company is gearing to open a wire service that will allow money-transfers (between users) through the website.
“Facebook is thinking about financial services in general, money transfer being one of these areas,” the source told Forbes Magazine. “They are making their minds up about what to do.”
This will, of course, not be accessible to all users, at least not at the beginning. Mark Zuckerberg and company are waiting on regulatory approval to start their e-payment service in Europe. This also wouldn’t be the first time they’ve tried their hat at e-payment services. Facebook has obtained Money Service Business (MSB) licenses in 48 states, meaning it already has the ability to offer currency exchanges and money transfers in America.
This is a pretty straightforward process – obtaining these licenses are easy and it does not mean they will actually use them. It is, however, evident that the idea has been planted and could be used in the near future. PayPal currently runs the market on Internet money-transfers, and it only makes sense that Facebook would be looking to give them some real competition.
That said, people have been outspoken in their lack of trust with Facebook’s handling of their personal data, and that may end up being Facebook’s biggest hurdle to jump through. That doesn’t mean Facebook won’t try, though, and it certainly doesn’t mean it won’t succeed.
