With mobile payments now gaining ground as potentially one of the biggest businesses of the coming decade, a number of the larger players in tech are looking to get into the mobile payments game, or expand the footprint they already have in this space. Now, Facebook (FB +2.48%) is joining that list of companies. While the company already has a small payments business in place, concentrated mostly on allowing Facebook game users to make in-game purchases for virtual goods, that business is stagnating as gaming moves away from Facebook toward mobile. Revenue from the company's small payments business is steadily on the decline in terms of percentage of overall revenue as it continues to be far outstripped by the company's ads business.
Now however, the Financial Times is reporting that Facebook is looking into expanding this business into a broader financial services platform for consumer payments. In this segment from Tuesday's Tech Teardown, host Erin Kennedy and Motley Fool tech and telecom bureau chief Evan Niu discuss the prospects for Facebook's payments business, and why the company may be targeting India in a big way. They also look at Google (GOOGL +1.74%)(GOOG +1.44%), a first mover in the payments space with its Google Wallet, and discuss why adoption was poor, and what Facebook may do differently.
