UK e-money institution ClickandBuy is to launch its first person-to-person payment service as a downloadable app for use by facebook friends and developers.
ClickandBuy - which operates an online payment system for Internet merchants - says the new app is geared toward "normal" users and to developers/marketers of apps.
Facebook users can both transfer money - after loading the account beforehand with ClickandBuy - and request money directly from facebook friends. Payments up to EUR50 in euro and dollar currencies will initially be available in the first stage of the roll out.
ClickandBuy CEO Charles Fränkl notes that over 1 billion images and 10 million videos are uploaded to facebook every month - and the general Internet trend continues to evolve in the direction of paid content.
"The monetisation of the Web 2.0 has just started; the significance of social networks continues to grow," he says. "We are making our first person-to-person payment service available to the world's largest social networking community - and others will soon follow."
ClickandBuy broke the EUR1 billion barrier for online payments in 2009 and the system is currently used by 16,000 merchants and 14 million users worldwide. The ten-year old company was awarded an e-money license by the Financial Services Authority in 2006.