Facebook Goes All-In on Fintech With Launch of New Product Group

Facebook has launched a new product group to promote “payments and commerce opportunities” with David Marcus, Libra’s co-creator, in charge of the division.

This new group, named Facebook Financial — or “F2” —will operate its payments projects, including the proposed Facebook Pay, according to a Bloomberg report published on Monday.

As it appears, this division will be combining Facebook’s past escapades in fintech and bringing them under one umbrella. Marcus is reportedly being brought on to oversee Novi, the wallet for Libra previously known as Calibra, as well as recent attempts to introduce payments via WhatsApp messenger.

The launch of a separate division to handle these projects suggests that the company intends to make a long-term commitment towards establishing itself in the payments industry. This moves adds momentum to the firm’s several years of efforts to integrate payments into Facebook’s apps.

I has also been reported that Former CEO of Upwork Stephane Kasriel will be payments vice president under Marcus.

Marcus, commenting on the news, said: “We have a lot of commerce stuff going on across Facebook. It felt like it was the right thing to do to rationalize the strategy at a company level around all things payments.”

Despite repeated efforts to create a blockchain-based currency, the division will reportedly prioritize introducing payments via WhatsApp in developing countries such as Brazil and India.

Regulatory backlash, claims of monopolistic behavior, added to a history of regulator mistrust are some of the inhibitors and hurdles that Facebook’s entry to payments must face.

Even non-crypto payments on WhatsApp were suspended by Brazilian regulators in July, while Libra had to remove many of its initial features in order to please authorities.