Meta continues to Meta-ficate its brands by renaming Facebook Pay, its payment system available on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Meta Pay. According to a blog post by Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s head of commerce and finance technology, the shift will take effect “soon,” and is the latest indication that the business once known as Facebook is all-in on the metaverse.
“We’re focused on improving the payments experiences we now provide with Facebook Pay, which is seeing high adoption,” Kasriel stated. “And, with this, a focus on quality in the nations where we currently have a presence, rather than expanding to new countries right now.” According to Kasriel’s post, people in businesses in 160 countries utilize Meta’s platforms to make payments.
Kasriel also shared Meta’s thoughts on Web3 technologies such as blockchain and NFTs. In one scenario, he stated, “Imagine a future where stars or athletes can sell NFTs that fans can buy to display in their virtual Horizon Homes.” (Meta’s social metaverse platform is Horizon Worlds.) “Or imagine all of this coming together when your favorite artist performs in the metaverse and shares an NFT for a backstage pass after the show.”
“Aside from NFTs, there is a slew of other Web3 tokens that we believe are appealing – social tokens, community tokens, governance tokens, and tokenized real-world assets,” he added. “There are many potential here, and we’re working to better grasp what they could mean for the metaverse.” Meta is already dipping its toes in the water with NFTs, announcing this week that it would begin testing the ability to share NFTs on Instagram, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that “similar functionality” will be added to Facebook soon.
Kasriel succeeded David Marcus, who managed Messenger and later Meta’s dormant cryptocurrency project after leaving Meta at the end of last year. While Meta abandoned that cryptocurrency initiative in January, Kasriel’s blog published on Thursday shows that the company still sees numerous additional prospects in payments and blockchain. Marcus is still interested in cryptocurrencies; on Thursday, he announced the formation of Lightspark, a firm formed to “research, grow, and extend the possibilities and utility of Bitcoin.”
