Facebook Messenger may soon become a retail hub: Report

Facebook’s standalone Messenger app might soon allow you to make payments directly. Also expected to get a “secret conversations” feature.

Facebook’s standalone Messenger app might soon allow you to make payments directly. Also expected to get a “secret conversations” feature. (Reuters)

Social media giant Facebook may roll out new features like in-store payment for goods and services and new chat options including 'Secret conversations' in Messenger, a media report said.

Comments in the code of the Messenger service for iPhone suggest that Facebook is about to make a whole lot more effort at becoming a retail hub, the Next Web tech portal reported, quoting The Information.

The company has till now not made any move in this direction and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg had in January said he does want a part in becoming a payments processor.

"On payments, the basic strategy that we have is to make it - especially in products like Messenger where the business interaction may be a bit more transactional - to take all the friction out of making the transactions that you need," he had said.

The report also suggested that the app will also get a "secret conversations" option -- but it is still not clear whether that is a reference to encrypted chats or simply a way to hide certain conversations within Messenger.

Facebook did not comment on this.