Facebook has launched a new product group to promote ‘payment and commerce opportunities’ with David Marcus, co-creator of Libra, leading the division.
The group, called Facebook Financial – or “F2” – will carry out its payment projects, including a planned Facebook Pay, Bloomberg announced Monday.
The division seems to include Facebook’s previous adventures in fintech under a single umbrella, with Marcus apparently dominating for both Novi, the wallet for Libra formerly known as Calibra, as well as recent attempts to bring payments to the WhatsApp messenger.
The launch of a dedicated division suggests that the company aims to be fully committed to the payments sector, continuing several years of efforts to integrate payments into Facebook’s apps.
Former CEO of Upwork Stephane Kasriel will be vice president for payments under Marcus.
Marcus commented on the news:
“We have a lot of commercial stuff on Facebook. It felt like it was the right thing to do to rationalize the strategy at the company level around all the payments for business. ”
Despite efforts to create a blockchain-based currency, the division’s direct goal will likely be to introduce payments via WhatsApp in developing countries such as Brazil and India.
The company is facing strong regulatory backlog on all fronts, as allegations of monopolistic behavior add to a history of distrust in the regulator following Facebook’s entry into payments.
Even non-crypto payments on WhatsApp were lifted in July by Brazilian regulators. Libra, on the other hand, had to give up many of its initial functions in advance in a bid to please authorities.
