New Facebook Messenger feature lets you split the bill with friends

New Facebook Messenger feature lets you split the beak with friends

The Facebook and Facebook Messenger logos next to each other on a laptop screen and a smartphone screen.

(Paradigm credit: viewimage/Shutterstock)

Fifty-fifty between the firmest friends, money can become a sore spot, and an upcoming "complimentary and fast" feature for Facebook Messenger aims to make interpersonal payments that bit easier to manage.

Meta has appear that a new feature called Divide Payments will be coming to Facebook Messenger next week. The name pretty much says information technology all: it ties in with Facebook Messenger'south existing person-to-person payment feature, letting friends split a nib with a clear UI showing who has paid upwards, and who is yet to ship money through.

Bills tin be created evenly or with unique fees for each group fellow member — useful for charging less to the guy that rents the small room, or making the gluton who ordered the lobster pays their fair share — and the person setting up the request is free to include themselves in the sum or non.

"If you've struggled with dividing up (and getting paid dorsum for) group dinners, shared household expenses or fifty-fifty the monthly rent, information technology'southward almost to go easier," Meta's web log post explains.

How Split up Payments in Facebook Messenger works

"To use Dissever Payments, click the "Get Started" button in a group chat or the Payments Hub in Messenger. From at that place, you can dissever a bill evenly or modify the contribution amount for each individual — with or without yourself included.

After entering a personalized message and confirming your Facebook Pay details, your request will be sent and viewable in your group chat thread."

The image below gives you an thought of how the process works:

Facebook Messenger Split Payment feature demoed — (Prototype credit: Meta)

Meta describes this as a feature beingness tested, rather than something that'southward completely set for primetime, and equally such it'south starting with a US-only release. Still, the timing does at least mean that Christmas parties should be a flake easier to organize.

Separate Payments for Facebook Messenger may be a lilliputian lightweight compared to the best budgeting apps, but that'south ultimately part of its charm: an like shooting fish in a barrel way to track what you're owed built into an app that people are already comfortable with. Hopefully it'll make chasing personal debts that bit easier, without letting resentments over missed payments fester into something more ugly.

Freelance correspondent Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, roofing phones, drones and everything in betwixt. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the spider web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing upwardly the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, y'all'll probably notice him tackling his e'er-growing games backlog. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.