Why would anyone use this? Does anyone trust it?
For example, my roommates and I already have a facebook messenger group chat where we discuss everything. It would be great to have financial matters settled inline as well instead of separately.
Anything from chipping in for more cleaning products to splitting some pizzas to paying rent, things we already do but are complicated by collecting cash irl.
And I could extend this use case to all of the 1:1 conversations I have going on in facebook messenger. I'm not sure how it's not obviously useful unless you simply don't use facebook and don't know anyone who does, which describes none of the people I know in real life.
What it doesnt do that would be even better is include a clone of splitwise. To keep track of debt and settle it once a month would be handier than constantly throwing cash back and forth.
These two are a godsend for living with roommates (or BF/GF/Spouse/etc). You can sub FB Pay (or any other method, even cash) for Venmo but splitwise is awesome.
Chatting with friends is not the same as buying stuff. It can really poison the atmosphere. The very act that you could send money makes you less engaged.
1. see something you like
2. message seller and arrange meetup/pickup
3. upon inspection, pay via messenger
4. transaction done
Unlike other communication that is more ephemeral, it is very likely that any monetary transaction will be permanently and irrevocably attached to the facebook identity.
I am eager to see how it well it works in practice