- The P2P money transfer services terminated by Facebook
- A new payment directive is scheduled to hit Europe come September
- The Facebook Coin might be the solution for issues revolving around stable coins
Facebook has reportedly scheduled to discontinue peer to peer services (P2P) in Europe starting June this year. Facebook’s P2P service allows users to receive and send money to friends and family through messenger. This discontinuation, however, does not affect some transactions such as donations to charitable organizations. So far, Facebook has not given the reason for this new development.
About the P2P Service
Apart from sending and receiving messages, Facebook Messenger also allows its users to send and receive money from friends and family. The P2P services on Facebook Messenger are free, but you have to adhere to a few conditions to use the service.
The spokesman stated that the P2P service was not being well used implying that it might be the reason for the discontinuation. The service was licensed back in 2016, after which it was rolled out in Europe. However, according to the latest development, the payments services is to be discontinued in the UK and France.
New Payment Directive Scheduled to Hit Europe in September
Strong customer authentication is a new payment directive expected to be put in place come September, across Europe. The said directive will require extra checks for user identification in any online transaction.
It is not clear if Facebook was prepared for this new development but if they were, how it had prepared for it remains unknown. Hints about Facebook working on a stable coin have been floating in the crypto space for some time now. If this crypto by Facebook is rolled out, it is projected to be the primary P2P payment mechanism.
Author’s Thoughts
Previously Facebook has made several attempts at virtual currencies, but nothing substantial has cultivated yet. However, with this news, Facebook’s efforts are slowly manifesting to realize their goal of introducing crypto which is predicted to be a stable coin that will be backed by a number of fiat currencies.
There are various challenges accompanying stable coins, the fact that they are not legal tender and cannot be accepted for making daily purchases being in the front line.
Even if remittances were made cheaper and faster, there is still a myriad of other issues that need to be sorted. If the Facebook Coin is able to take care of all these issues, then it sure is a great deal. Partnering with Facebook so that other Companies can accept Facebook Coin as a means of payment would be a real breakthrough for cryptocurrencies.
