News

Facebook testing 'autofill' mobile payments product

September 24, 2013

After testing with a small group of retailers a feature that lets customers automatically enter payment information into mobile devices through their Facebook accounts, the social media giant is rolling out its next payments experiment.

AllThingsD reports that the company is conducting a small test of "Autofill with Facebook," which will slowly roll out to the company's billion-strong user network. With the feature, users who have stored their address and credit card information on Facebook for use with the retail apps in the pilot program — currently only Jack Threads and Mosaic — will see a small drop-down prompt when hitting the payment information screen at checkout. Hitting the autofill button prompts the app to access info from the user's Facebook account.

As the website notes, Facebook said the move will reduce friction in mobile payments by making it easier to enter information; retailers working to convert online retail shoppers into paying customers know that filling out screens on a mobile device can be too much work for the casual smartphone shopper.

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