Apple Pay functionality could one day be integrated into Facebook iOS apps including the social media site’s main app and Messenger, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hinted.
During his company’s earnings conference call for the last quarter of 2015, Zuckerberg insisted that, while Facebook is not seeking to provide a bespoke payments service, it could nonetheless partner with another company that does in order to boost its advertising revenues.
Zuckerberg spoke of the importance of a Facebook-based payment system that can “take all the friction out of making the transactions that you need”. Facebook is seeking a system capable of easing interactions between users and businesses and, in the process, helping Facebook to increase its charges for advertising space, as reported by AppleInsider.
Zuckerberg further explained that his company will “partner with everyone who does payments”, adding: “We look at the stuff that Apple is doing with Apple Pay, for example, as a really neat innovation in the space that takes a lot of friction out of transactions as well.”
It’s easy to imagine Facebook allowing users of its main iOS app or Messenger to tap a ‘buy’ button on in-app product advertisements before choosing Apple Pay as a payment method. Indeed, the Facebook-owned Instagram was, in November, reported to be testing such integration of Apple Pay.