by In today’s digital era, a variety of payment gateway providers like Stripe and PayPal allow for seamless and quick transactions all around the globe right at the fingertips. Whether a business wants to select a high-risk merchant processing provider or a low-risk one, it’s not hard to find a reliable and efficient payment gateway online.
In addition to this, social media users can also leverage social media tools to make or receive payments in a breeze. Take Facebook Pay as an example which allows transactions on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram for added convenience.
However, social media platform payments come with both benefits and risks. Read this article to explore!
Table of Contents
Benefits of Social Media Platform Payments
1. No Transaction Charges
As most online payment service providers charge a certain percentage of fees while making or receiving payments, this is not the case with Facebook Pay.
It doesn’t charge any transaction fee and allows you to complete your transaction without losing a large chunk of money in the name of “additional” charges.
2. Secure Payments
Social media payments offer the payer an extra layer of protection with the security settings to make authorized payments only.
Even if a person has the email ID and password to your social media account, they will need to enter a PIN or confirm their identity by Face ID to make a payment.
3. Hassle-Free Transactions
Making payments through social media tools is as easy as entering your card details or your PayPal account details with the amount you want to transfer and clicking on the “pay” button. Whereas, the payee usually receives the funds within 3 to 5 business days.
You also need to simply have the payee added on your WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook to make a transaction in a breeze with a simple interface.
Risks of Social Media Platform Payments
1. Risk of Hackers and Scammers
Even if you use the security settings on your social media accounts, modern technology still gives access to hackers and scammers to get into your accounts and send payments to themselves with the card details you have stored on your accounts as soon as they find a weak link in your system.
2. Other Limitations
In order to send or receive a payment on social media, both parties need to be on social media and should be added as a friend or be on your contact list. Now, if a person isn’t on social media, you can’t force them to be on it to make a transaction.
And if you’re using Facebook Pay on Facebook and Instagram to transact with someone with whom you have a professional relationship, you may not want to add them to your personal account and give access to your personal life for the sake of making or receiving a payment.
Moreover, if you want to make or receive payments using Facebook Pay on Instagram, you need to consider that this service is not available to all countries. So, for instance, you can’t send a payment to your international client in South Africa from Australia as Australia doesn’t have an Instagram payment service available yet.
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