Facebook launches group to oversee "all things payments" with David Marcus at the helm

Source: The Block 2020-08-11

Facebook has launched Facebook Financial, a new group focused on all payments and commerce-related opportunities with Libra co-founder David Marcus at the helm.

Marcus will now head up all payments projects at the tech giant. According to a Bloomberg report published Monday, the project, internally known as F2, is an effort to reorganize commerce strategy at Facebook. Facebook also added former Upwork Inc. Chief Executive Officer Stephane Kasriel to its payments team. Kasriel will report to Marcus as the vice president of payments.

"Today we're creating a new group to look after all things payments/FS [financial services] at Facebook," Marcus tweeted.

One of the many projects that Facebook Financial will oversee includes Facebook Pay, which is Facebook’s universal payment feature that the company intends to integrate within all its apps.

Marcus has worked at Facebook for six years, working on Facebook Messenger prior to taking the lead on Libra. Before joining Facebook, he was president of PayPal Holdings Inc. In addition to his new role as head of Facebook Financial, Marcus will also continue to direct the team that is creating Novi, a digital wallet to support the Libra cryptocurrency.

"No changes @Novi, which I'll continue to lead directly," Marcus said in a tweet.

With Facebook Financial, he'll also continue his work on WhatsApp’s payments front in India and Brazil, among other countries. This is Facebook’s latest move to merge its apps and products into a unified experience for its users. The end goal is to grow Facebook’s advertising and have users spend more time within the company’s platform by having them purchase goods on Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, according to the report.

The company has spent heavily on making WhatsApp a stop for commerce in India and Brazil, and setting up a payment system within the app for those jurisdictions remains an immediate goal. However, as The Block previously reported, the central bank of Brazil suspended WhatsApp’s payments services just a week after it was launched in June 2020.

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Facebook launches group to oversee "all things payments" with David Marcus at the helm

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