Facebook Messenger Users Can Now Send Money Via PayPal

Facebook Messenger is letting U.S. users send and receive money with PayPal.

The latest Messenger upgrade was announced today, expanding an existing relationship with the payments company. PayPal first partnered with Facebook last year, enabling 2.5 million customers in the U.S. to link their accounts and use PayPal to shop on Messenger.

Starting today, the mobile chat app will power peer-to-peer payments for U.S. users.

“Consumers now want the ability to transact wherever they are and however they want, and PayPal is committed to being the best option to enable this,” said Bill Ready, PayPal’s chief operating officer, in a release.

“The ability to send and request money in Messenger – one of the most widely used apps in the world – gives people more choice and more convenient ways to get things done in different contexts,” he added.

In a message with a single person or group, users will have the option to tap on a blue plus icon, then select the green payments button to bring up existing options. Users with a linked PayPal account will see their balance and can select the payments platform to send money.

PayPal is also introducing a customer service bot for Messenger that users can chat with to reset an account password, handle their account inquiries, and help with payment issues.

Facebook isn’t the only company PayPal has tapped to send money. In August, the payments company rolled out cash transfers with Skype, open to 20 countries in the world.

The Facebook-PayPal payments integration puts the pair in direct competition with Apple, as they recently let Apple Pay users transfer money via iMessage in iOS11.