Facebook Makes Friends With HSBC and WePay

Bank Technology News | August, 2010

Firms at both ends of the financial establishment—multi national giant HSBC and online payment services startup WePay—have unveiled initiatives aimed at taking advantage of the Facebook’s increasing popularity.

WePay, a service that enables groups to collect money on the Internet for a variety of purposes, has integrated its services with Facebook. The two-year old WePay’s model enables people to establish a means to pay and collect money for events, fundraisers, parties, clubs and fantasy sports leagues.

By integrating into Facebook, WePay’s Sell Tickets app will be usable to sell tickets to ”Facebook Events,” while the Collect Money app allows users to collect money from members of any “Facebook Group.”

In a statement, Bill Clerico, cofounder and CEO of WePay, said the move was made to extend WePay’s payment functionality into the social media environment, reaching millions of members who are organizing a variety of social events on new social networking sites.

In another deployment, a firm much older than WePay, HSBC, is looking to reach younger demographic groups by running a competition on Facebook which gives students the chance to win about $23,000 for schools. Interested parties have until September 15 to submit an entry as to how receiving the money “at university” would help the student make a mark on the world.

After the deadline, visitors will vote for their favorites, and the top 20 entries will be whittled down to 8 winners by a panel of judges.

In a statement, Matt Nguyen, youth and student segment manger for HSBC, said the bank hopes to reach as many students as possible by using Facebook.