Note from the CEO:  Shhhhhhhh! Be very quiet and don’t tell anyone, but Facebook has an e-money license to do business in the EU. But wait, isn’t Facebook where you DO spread secrets and gossip (among other stuff)? Well anyway, Facebook Messenger will be able to facilitate peer-to-peer payments on the continent. Need some cash? You think that long lost relative in Ireland is on Facebook?

Facebook is quietly expanding its payment app (Messenger) in to the EU via an e-money license granted recently in Ireland. Since Ireland is a member of the EU that will allow Facebook to offer Messenger services to all the other 27 EU member states. Perhaps the quiet launch is not to ‘alarm’ competitors such as PayPal, Western Union, etc that Facebook is going to be a bigger player. Unless, of course, those firms have a Facebook account and hear the secret.

"Yesterday what extremely caught my attention was a brief article by TechCrunch about how Facebook has secured an e-money license in Europe. In fact, a more interesting thing is that none of this went public – as we can see from the screenshot from the Central Bank of Ireland, the license was authorized on 24 October 2016. Since there were no major announcements from Facebook itself ever since, this raises definite curiosity and a lot of speculations.

As visible from the data above, Facebook Payments International Limited (FBPIL) can now issue e-money, provide payment services including credit transfers and money remittance. A point worth noting here is that since Ireland is a member of the European Union, this allows Facebook to operate with the authorized licensed in all other 27 EU member states.

One obvious (and probably core) application of such license is peer-to-peer payments via Facebook Messenger. Also, with reference to statement by Facebook, the license authorizes FBPIL to issue donations from Facebook users to charities registered in the European Economic Area (EEA) only. This one is quite questionable though, but it is worth consideration nevertheless.

To get a better understanding of how this will work, it is worth looking at the United States market, where Facebook has introduced payments earlier this year."

Source: Linkedin Pulse