Is sending money though Facebook Messenger safe?
Sending money to a friend will soon be just a Facebook message away.
A new, free聽, Facebook鈥檚 messaging app, will let users link their account to a Visa or MasterCard debit account. Once they do so, they鈥檒l be able to send a payment to anyone on their list of contacts with just a couple of聽taps.
The feature will be available on Android, Apple鈥檚 iOS operating system and desktop. It will be rolling out in the next few months, starting in the United States, according to Facebook.
To send money via the Facebook app, users start a message to聽a contact聽in Messenger, tap a new dollar-sign icon, then enter the amount they want to send. Tapping the word 鈥淧ay鈥� completes the transaction.
To receive money for the first time, a user opens the message and taps 鈥淎dd Card鈥� to tell the app which debit card account should receive the payment.
Facebook says the money will be transferred instantly, but, as with other kinds of deposits, some banks may take up to three days to process the payment.
With the move, Facebook joins social-media peer Snapchat, which聽聽in November, in the increasingly competitive mobile payments field.
Snapcash works through the disappearing-post app鈥檚 chat feature, letting users who have signed up simply type a dollar amount and convert it from a chat message to a Snapcash payment.
Addressing security concerns, Facebook noted in a post Tuesday that it already handles more than 1 million transactions every day for games and other payments.
鈥淚ncorporating security best practices into our payments business has always been a top priority,鈥� the company said in the post. 鈥淲e use secure systems that encrypt the connection between you and Facebook as well as your card information when you ask us to store it for you.鈥�
Once they鈥檝e added a debit card to their account, users may create a personal identification number to provide additional security any time they try to send money. Users of iPhones or iPads also may enable Touch ID that would be required for the transactions.
Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for聽. Follow him on Twitter聽and on聽.
