Dallas, Texas 04/16/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is reportedly looking at growing other sources of revenues apart from its core ad revenue. To be specific, they’re looking to get registered as a mobile payment platform in Ireland, where the company has applied for an e-money license from the Central bank of Ireland.
The FT Report
According to a report published in the FT, Facebook is already in talks with London-based startups TransferWise, Moni Technologies and Azimo to help get the system working. The report singles out Azimo, which already has implemented Facebook integration into its peer-to-peer payment system to enable Facebook users to pay each other.
The Ft report says that Facebook is prepared to offer Azimo $10 million if a co-founder comes on to Facebook to handle business development. The technology that Azimo has developed would obviously be a part of the deal.
Note that Facebook hasn’t said anything, and neither have any of the other parties in Ireland or the U.K. that are involved.
The Competition For a Mobile Payments Platform
eBay and Paypal unquestionably owned online payments for the PC era. However, no clear successor has emerged for mobile payments. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been fiddling with a whole lot of things for a long time, without producing a breakout success. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is no doubt tinkering with a mobile payment system that leverages the company’s unique position as the seller of iPhones and iPads loaded with iOS that are being used to buy and download apps from their own App Store.
There are other smaller but more nimble platforms such as Braintree’s Venmo, which touts itself as the fun, free and simple way to pay your friends. This is the kind of thing that Facebook will be aiming for, and it’s an interesting play because they can get it going right away by leveraging their massive billion-plus user base.
