Facebook Messenger Lets You Send Money Now

Facebook Messenger is no longer just to send/receive messages. The social networking site has announced a new payments feature that lets you send money instantly to your friends.

According to the announcement made by Facebook Tuesday, American users of its Messenger app would be able to link their debit cards to the service and use it to message money to one another just as easily as they send a snapshot or text.

To send money:

Start a message with a friend

Tap the $ icon and enter the amount you want to send

Tap Pay in the top right and add your debit card to send money

To receive money:

Open the conversation from your friend

Tap Add Card in the message and add your debit card to accept money for the first time

The money you send is transferred right away. It may take one to three business days to make the money available to you depending on your bank, just as it does with other deposits, the company added.

Given Facebook's huge size and reach, the introduction of its payments feature - which has been highly anticipated by Wall Street - is likely to cause tremors in the nascent market for instantly sending money to individuals, known as peer-to-peer payments, noted NYT.

"Facebook could use this as a back door to get people's debit cards to enable the buy button," said Robert Peck, an Internet analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

The new payments feature will be rolled out in the coming months in the US across Android, iOS, and desktop.