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Facebook Pay, go away, now it's time for Meta Pay

Because corporate branding and the metaverse.

Meta logo

The Facebook Pay name clearly stopped making sense when Facebook Inc. renamed itself Meta Platforms Inc.

Photo: Meta

It's not exactly a beloved gadget like the iPod, but a workhorse of social commerce is also getting put out to pasture. Stephane Kasriel, the leader of Meta's financial services operation, announced that the company's retiring the Facebook Pay name in favor of Meta Pay.

Facebook Pay dates back to 2009, when Facebook had ambitions to harness payments within social gaming apps like FarmVille, charging a hefty cut of transactions. That business faded as mobile gaming took over and consumers got bored with clicking sheep, but Facebook Pay remained as a system for processing all sorts of commerce within Facebook's growing empire.

The Facebook Pay name clearly stopped making sense when Facebook Inc. renamed itself Meta Platforms Inc., but the company was also struggling with what to call its financial division, which encompassed Facebook Pay and the newer Novi crypto wallet. The whole division was set to be renamed Novi, but then executive David Marcus, the former PayPal president who oversaw Novi, left. Kasriel, his successor, renamed the group Meta Financial Technologies.

Kasriel suggested there might be a rethink of Meta's wallet offering across its products. "We’re in the very early stages of scoping out what a single wallet experience might look like and will have more to say further down the line," he wrote. Meta spokespeople didn't address the future of the Novi name in light of Kasriel's announcement, but a representative told Protocol in April that the crypto wallet was still called Novi for now.

The Meta Pay name, which Kasriel said would be rolled out soon, will make more sense for a number of initiatives the company is pushing. Instagram is heavily promoting its shopping features, but presents Facebook Pay as an option at checkout.

Meta's recently gotten blowback over its payment system for NFTs in Horizon Worlds. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri took pains to note that there wouldn't be a charge for a new feature that allows users to share NFTs on the platform.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas is a senior editor at Protocol overseeing venture capital and financial technology coverage. He was previously business editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and before that editor-in-chief at ReadWrite, a technology news site. You're probably going to remind him that he was managing editor at Valleywag, Gawker Media's Silicon Valley gossip rag. He lives in San Francisco with his husband and Ramona the Love Terrier, whom you should follow on Instagram.

metaversefacebook paymeta paystephane kasrielnovifacebook
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