[sjbase]

A lot of people are commenting about Facebook being "yet another entrant" into the wallet & payment game. I'd enjoy the ease and simplicity of having everyone on a single payment platform as much as the next guy, but it's simply not realistic. There's too much at stake for Google, Apple, Paypal, Square etc. to just give up.

Instead, I could see this taking a similar direction as web authentication: instead of "Login with Google+" or "Login with Facebook" buttons, you have "Send $ to Google Wallet" in your FB-pay interface.

I'd also point out that Facebook, by virtue of having a ton of data about their users, is well positioned to do things like identity assertion and fraud analytics; two of the more critical aspects of digital payment. Makes sense to me that they join the fray.

[shostack]

It also makes sense for businesses to consider them as a payment option given the reach, and if it takes off, the likelihood that a user will keep their payment details current.

Expired credit card churn is a huge issue for any successful SaaS business, and someone is much more likely to keep their payment details updated with a service they pay through regularly than they are entering one-off CC info. Adding FB to the mix with Apple, Amazon, Paypal and Google would make sense for a lot of companies (although probably entails a whole host of headaches).