Despite the lack of progress on its Libra stablecoin project, Facebook has doubled down on its fintech efforts, launching a new product group. 

According to Bloomberg, Facebook Financial, or ‘F2’, will be headed by David Marcus, Libra’s co-creator, and will be tasked with promoting “payments and commerce opportunities.”

F2 looks set to bring all of Facebook’s existing fintech projects, such as the Novi wallet (formerly known as ‘Calibra’), and WhatsApp payments, under one command.

Stephane Kasriel, former CEO of Upwork, has been appointed payments vice president, reporting to Marcus. 

With Facebook’s blockchain-based currency efforts currently stalled, it seems the new division’s immediate focus will be to roll out WhatsApp payments in developing markets like India and Brazil. 

Staying with Facebook and Libra, only last month UC Berkeley professor, economic historian, and former IMF policy adviser, Barry Eichengreen, said that the project will likely encounter too many “insoluble” problems and roadblocks from national governments to ever launch properly. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Though Eichengreen may well be right about Libra, Facebook’s massive reach through Facebook itself, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp mean there’s still enormous opportunities to integrate payments services, and in the process create a dominante new force in financial services. 

However, what does seem likely now is that those financial services will take far longer to roll out, will be much more piecemeal, and a little more traditional in nature. At least for the time being. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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