Facebook Messenger will very soon allow you to transfer money

In the lead-up to Facebook’s marquee F8 developer conference happening later today, it appears that other than announcement of new app features, Facebook has bigger plans for Messenger like including features like chatbots, videos or something as useful as transferring money.

While the feature is only available in the US currently, it is expected to go live soon. Here are a few steps to show how to send and receive money via Messenger:

Step 1) Payments on the app requires a debit card on both ends of the transaction, however, there is no attached cost to use the service. It offers PIN-based protection and what Facebook claims are “industry-leading security” standards. You need to add your debit card first to get started. For the Android app, you need to press the profile icon and then scroll down to payments to add the card. On the other hand for the iOS app, you will need to click on Settings, then Payments. Click on Add New Debit Card and complete that process.

Step 2) Once the card is added, open a new chat with the person whom you want the money or whom you want to request money from. Tap the little “more” icon in the toolbar, which is the one with three dots in a rectangular box and continue.

Step 3) Once you enter the Payments sub-menu or option, click on next to move to the Pay screen where you will be requested to enter the desired amount and then click on Pay to complete the transaction. On the other hand, the user needs to have already added a card to his account for the entire process to be successful.

Step 4) Instead of the ‘Pay’ option in the Payments sub-menu, you need to click on ‘Request’ and enter the amount and then finish the process to complete the transaction, in the event you want to request money from a contact. The transaction will appear as embedded item right in line with your existing chat with any of the one action. From there, just by tapping the recipient can either accept or reject the payment.

For those who use debit cards, this is a super easy way to perform electronic transactions on the move.