Facebook’s Messenger seems to have codes which when activated would let users send cash to friends with as much ease as sending a photo over chat.
The yet to be revealed payment option was unearthed by a Stanford student Andrew Aude who was intrigued by the revelations of the security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski a month ago.
According to the TechCrunch report, Aude used a developer’s tool named Cycript to analyze the Messenger for iOS on his jailbroken iPhone and recorded a video showing the possible outcome of the hidden codes.
The graphical version of the codes show that users can use only debit cards to transfer money and Aude says that it could be due to the minimal transactional charges for debit card transfers as credit card or direct transfer from bank accounts would result in a high cost of transfer.
Speculators say that Facebook might use the service to leverage the potential to attract more users for its Messenger app while some others say that the company could make it a way to bring in more revenue.
Aude has said that the feature might be rolled out generally in a few months. However, Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q2 earnings call that the company wants to take sufficient time to do the groundwork efficiently in such a way that the system will run smoothly for many years.
It is also said that the codes might just be an early stage trial that Facebook is conducting initially and that it might take quite some time for the feature to see the daylight. Although transfers through PayPal were not visible in the graphical version, the codes is said to have the option available which might be activated when Facebook sees it fit. Currently, the codes support only single payments, multiple payments might be made available some time after the feature is rolled out.
