Facebook Pay is now Meta Pay.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta has officially rebranded Facebook Pay to Meta Pay to provide payment solutions in both the metaverse and in places where the service is highly adopted.
Facebook Pay's rebranding was previously revealed on May 12 by Meta's head of fintech, Stephanie Kasriel, through a blog post, according to Tech Crunch.
Facebook Pay Rebranding
Zuckerberg mentioned in his announcement that the rebranding is a "first step" toward the company creating a digital wallet for its vision of the metaverse, per Engadget.
He also assured us that while Facebook Pay's name will change to Meta Pay, the rest of its offerings will stay the same. He said that it would stay the same "easy way" to shop, send money, and donate to charities and causes people care about on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and other places where Facebook Pay is used.
However, unlike Facebook Pay, Meta Pay will also serve as a digital wallet for those who wish to buy digital items, such as clothing, art, videos, music, and similar products for the metaverse. It will also let users manage their identity, what they own, and how they pay in a secure environment.
Zuckerberg mentioned that people who wish to take the digital items they bought in the metaverse in different services would need to present proof of ownership, which is solved by Meta Pay's new feature.
Zuckerberg described an ideal scenario where Meta Pay is used that users should be able to sign into any metaverse experience, and everything users bought for themselves, like digital clothes, would be automatically available to them.
"There's a long way to get there, but this kind of interoperability will deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators," Zuckerberg said while hinting that he wants Meta Pay to be the go-to wallet of the metaverse.
He also added that the more easily a user can transact, the bigger the opportunity for creator should get from Meta Pay as well.
Facebook Pay Rebranding's Previous Announcement
The news about Facebook Pay being rebranded to Meta Pay isn't at all surprising. Stephanie Kasriel mentioned in a Medium blog post in May that Meta will be rebranding Facebook Pay to Meta pay to "enhance the payments experieces" Meta already provides with Facebook Pay in places where it is highly adopted as opposed to expanding to new countries.
Kasriel also revealed that the company is, at the time, exploring how it can further simplify its payments experiences across its platforms to make payments easier to access and process in the metaverse, which they eventually did.
He also mentioned that the company is also considering how to store digital goods users won and take them wherever they go, which Zuckerberg said it would.
Finally, Kasriel stated that Meta is designing products and infrastructure ahead of the metaverse becoming mainstream so that Meta will help facilitate innovation that delivers "greater access and real cost savings."
"Now is the time to lay down the building blocks for the future," Kasriel said. "Because once that foundation is in place, the potential of the metaverse, and where it can take fintech next, will be limitless.
