Why Facebook Suddenly Wants to Handle Your Money - TIME

http://time.com/3542410/facebook-money/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

• Ryan Holmes
 

Oct.,28, 2014  -  5:45 AM ET 

    

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks during the Internet.org summit in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014.Udit Kulshrestha—Bloomberg/Getty Images

It's quickly becoming the biggest battle zone in tech

Facebook already handles your social life; now it wants to handle your money. Hacked screenshots released this month show a hidden payment option inside Facebook’s popular Messenger app, which is used by 200 million people around the globe. The feature—discovered by a Stanford computer science student snooping around existing code—would potentially let users send money to one another in a message using debit card information. Facebook hasn’t commented on the hack or when, if ever, it might activate the feature.

MORE

Twitter Stock Tumbles After Drop in User EngagementFacebook Is Going to Be a Lot Smarter Now That Stephen Hawking Has Joined'Naked Rambler' Loses Legal Battle to Bare All NBC NewsA New Red Line: Is ISIS Using Chemical Weapons? NBC NewsGov. Christie: Ebola Quarantine Rules 'Will Not Change' NBC News

But, for the moment, a far more interesting question is why would Facebook consider going down this road at all. Behind Facebook’s foray into payments is a thrilling possibility. Could the world’s largest social network be gearing up for a future showdown with the world’s largest credit card companies? At stake is a potentially massive jackpot: the $40 billion to $50 billion a year (in the U.S. alone) that credit card-issuing banks make off the so-called interchange rate, i.e. the hefty transaction fee that merchants have to cough up whenever customers use credit cards.