Facebook wants to create a giant, social-powered digital payments network

"Facebook Pay me"... Not as catchy as Venmo (but still #Zucked). Facebook has reportedly launched a new division that'll unify all its payment products under one umbrella. Excitingly-called "Facebook Financial" will run all digital payments, including Facebook Pay and Calibra crypto. Digital payments have soared as people fear germy paper cash — FB wants a (large) slice of that growth:

• Facebook Pay lets you shop and send $$$ to friends directly through FB. In the US, it's available in FB, Messenger, and Insta. Everywhere else, it's only available through FB.
• Facebook's Master Plan: Integrate FB Pay into all its apps globally for a huge social-powered payment network. The big focus is integrating FB Pay into WhatsApp in India, which has over 400M users.

Come together, right now... FB's feeling Paul and Ringo vibes. Its highly successful children have very different reps: Facebook (the helicopter parent), Instagram (the too-cool-for-school teen), WhatsApp (the foreign cousin), and Messenger (the distant aunt). Facebook Financial is its latest move to bring the "family" together:

• Facebook added "from Facebook" branding on Insta and WhatsApp to make sure you know it owns your go-to apps. Given FB's complicated rep, we're not sure whether that helps or hurts.
• Zuck announced plans to integrate FB's messaging services across apps. FB Financial will be a key part of this unified messaging backbone. Social + ecommerce is a powerful duo.