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Facebook is truly the King of online social media right now. With about a billion users, it is already far, far ahead of all its contemporaries. Ever since its IPO filing, the social network giant has been looking for newer ways to bolsters its revenues. And it now seems that Facebook has new plans for its Payments model.

Facebook, without a doubt, commands a massive audience.  All it needs to make a feature successful is to pitch it well enough to this user base and voila, it will be a hit. The company has been using ‘Facebook Credits’ as a form of virtual currency for its games and apps. Facebook Credits have been around for the last three years but now Facebook has announced that it will be gradually phasing them out.

So what does Facebook intend to do with payments made on its apps, games etc? Well, from now on, you will be able to pay in your native currency when paying on Facebook. For instance, if you are a U.S. Facebook user, you can pay in U.S. dollars. Thus, Facebook has abandoned the plans of developing a new currency of its own and has decided to go with what is already available.

This is definitely a wise move by Facebook. If it had wanted to establish ‘Facebook Credits’ well enough, that would have taken quite a lot of time and resources. On the other hand, it can simply use the power of already-established currencies. Also, Facebook launched its own App Center and soon, paid apps are expected to land on this app store of sorts.

This essentially means that Facebook is considering its online payment a serious avenue for profits, something which is very possible. In fact, some analysts have speculated that Facebook can launch a kind of model in which users save their credit card information on Facebook and then use their Facebook login to purchase goods online. Much like Facebook logins are used to comment on different websites these days.

Again, this is practically very possible and with some hard work, Facebook can pull this off only to rake a few more billions into its profits. As a comparison, Facebook can be PayPal but with better user base and prospects.

An analysts sums it this way, “Millions of us are already using Facebook to log on to other sites to comment on articles, share information, or register a product. With FacebookCard added to our Facebook accounts, all we have to do is use that same login, and the transaction is done. Want to ship a gift to your mom? Just select her from your Facebook friends at checkout.”

While this still remains a possibility, we can’t say for sure if Facebook may go for it. However, if it does, will you or will you not use your Facebook login to purchase things online?

Resources: TechCrunch

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