Nice overview article.....Also interesting that in contrast to Snapcash and Venmo, Facebook’s service does not make instant payments: the money only arrives after a few hours or even days, depending on how quickly users’ banks act.
NEWS of the death of cash has always been exaggerated. But the wounds being inflicted on notes and coins multiply. On March 17th Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, announced that in America its instant-messaging app will soon allow users to send each other money just as easily as texts and photos. All they need to do is link their debit cards to their Facebook account, tap on a dollar sign in the app, type in the amount and press send. Facebook is not the first to enter the market for free person-to-person (P2P, as geeks have it) payments. In November, for instance, Snapchat, a messaging app that lets users send each other photos that disappear after a few seconds, introduced a service called Snapcash.
