Facebook’s plans for a mobile payments system using its Facebook Messenger iPhone app have been revealed by screenshots from hidden features of the app.

The screenshots and code from the app show a method for adding a credit or debit card to a Facebook account and the ability to send money to friends via messages.

“With Facebook Messenger, you attach money just like you attach a photo or a location,” said Andrew Aude, an iOS developer, security researcher and Stanford University student who discovered the service buried in the current Facebook Messenger iPhone app. “You don’t even have to link a bank account!”

The app appears to have a pin function to protect payments, but that payments are handled in a similar manner to photos and videos while sending messages.

E-money status

Facebook has long been expected to unveil a mobile payments service, and made moves to that effect by allowing third-party developers to enable money transfer across the social network using apps as early as 2010.

This year Facebook sort regulatory approval in its European base in Ireland for “e-money” status, which would see it issue digital credits that can be converted into cash by recipients.

The company already has permission for some forms of money transfer in the US, which allow payments within apps, including the Candy Crush Saga and Farmville games, from which Facebook takes a 30% cut. The company facilitated $2.1bn (£1.3bn) in transactions across Facebook in 2013, primarily to games publishers.

Approval to operate an e-money service in Ireland would allow Facebook to operate across Europe using “passporting” rules, which allow digital payments to be used across EU member states without having to fain regulatory approval from each country.

Estimated $5 trillion to $10tn

Facebook’s focus on payment services was expected to be the remittance market, which is worth around $500bn according to the World Bank, where money is sent between developed and developing nations usually with wealthier family members sending money to other family members.

The market for digital money transfer globally is valued at an estimated $5 trillion to $10tn, according to data from Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of remittance service TransferWise.

Barclays PingIt and Paym will allow UK mobile phone users to send money to others using just a smartphone app or phone number, while PayPal’s app also allows users to send money to other users privately.

The leaked details from the Messenger app do not indicate that Facebook will follow Google and Apple with a payment system that would allow users to pay for goods and services at stores, like a credit or debit card.

Facebook declined to comment.

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