In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg (Chief Executive Officer of Meta) announced that Facebook Pay will officially be known as Meta Pay. As of now, this big change is being rolled out in the U.S. and will be rolled out globally later over time. The current payment product of Meta, its overall experience, and features that were available with Facebook Pay will continue to be operational and remain the same across all Meta products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram).

Though the product and its service remain the same, the change in the name represents the first step of Meta towards establishing an efficient digital wallet for its metaverse. Zuckerberg’s vision for his metaverse’s digital wallet includes allowing users to manage their identities, their belongings in the metaverse, and how they pay securely.

The need for Meta Pay in Meta

With this move, Meta is focusing on solving the problem of secure transactions in the metaverse. The wallet will also keep adding newer features with time to what was known as Facebook Pay and will continue supporting the range of payments it offers already. However, the new focus would be on digital identity and proof of ownership.

In his post, Zuckerberg said that in the future, all sorts of digital items could be created or bought in the metaverse, like clothing, videos, music, art, virtual events, and experiences. He added that if the owner of the digital asset wants to take any of these items across different services, proof of ownership would be a key aspect. 

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Singular digital identity in the metaverse

Zuckerberg further added that users would, ideally, be able to sign into any sort of metaverse experience and everything the user has purchased should be available there. This is a key goal that Meta aims to reach with its digital payment service Meta Pay. They aim at having a Web3 identity for each user that will help in linking purchases of all digital assets and items to one, single digital identity. 

Zuckerberg explained that this sort of interoperability will create and deliver a much better experience for users and will create even larger opportunities for content creators on the platform. He says “the more places you can easily use your digital goods, the more you’ll value them, which creates a bigger market for creators”.

Stephane Kasriel, Head of Fintech at Meta, said that Meta is in its very early stages of contemplating and brainstorming what an individual wallet experience may look like. He said that Meta is now looking at how users will have to prove who they are, and carry as well as use that verified identity into different experiences in the metaverse.

Facebook renamed its parent company to Meta last year in October with the main ambition of building the metaverse. Facebook Pay was launched in November 2019 but the social media giant has been into payments since 2009. The giant says that people use its platforms for making payments in about 160 countries. The company allows transactions in 55 currencies, which includes person-to-person, business-to-consumer payments, and business-to-business payments.

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Image Courtesy: Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay