INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Backlash swelled this morning after Facebook aspirations in financial services were blown out of proportion by a Wall Street Journal report
that neglected how the social network already works with banks
Facebook spokesperson Elisabeth Diana tells TechCrunch it not asking for credit card transaction data from banks and it not interested in
building a dedicated banking feature where you could interact with your accounts
It also says its work with banks isn''t to gather data to power ad targeting, or even personalize content such as which Marketplace products
you see based on what you buy elsewhere.
Instead, Facebook already lets Citibank customers in Singapore connect their accounts so they can
ping their bank Messenger chatbot to check their balance, report fraud or get customer service help if they&re locked out of their account
without having to wait on hold on the phone
That chatbot integration, which has no humans on the other end to limit privacy risks, was announced last year and launched this March
Facebook works with PayPal in more than 40 countries to let users get receipts via Messenger for their purchases.
Expansions of these
partnerships to more financial services providers could boost usage of Messenger by increasing its convenience — and make it more of a
centralized utility akin to China WeChat
But Facebook relationships with banks in the current form aren''t likely to produce a steep change in ad targeting power that warrants
significant heightening of its earning expectations
The reality of today news is out of step with the 3.5 percent share price climb triggered by the WSJ report.
A recent Wall Street Journal
story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data & this is not true
Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or
Account linking enables people to receive real-time updates in Facebook Messenger where people can keep track of their transaction data like
account balances, receipts, and shipping updates,& Diana told TechCrunch
&The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone & and it completely opt-in
We&re not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences & not for advertising or anything else
A critical part of these partnerships is keeping people information safe and secure.
Diana says banks and credit card companies have also
approached it about potential partnerships, not just the other way around as the WSJ reports
She says any features that come from those talks would be opt-in, rather than happening behind users& backs
The spokesperson stressed these integrations would only be built if they could be privacy safe
For example, signing up to use the Citibank Messenger chatbot requires two-factor authentication through your phone.
But renewed interest
in Facebook dealings with banks comes at a time when many are pointing to its poor track record with privacy following the Cambridge
Analytica scandal, where people were duped into volunteering the personal info of them and their friends
Facebook hasn''t had a big traditional data breach where data was outright stolen, as has befallen LinkedIn, eBay, Yahoo [part of TechCrunch
parent company] and others
But users are rightfully reluctant to see Facebook ingest any more of their sensitive data for fear it could leak or be misused.
Facebook
has recently cracked down on the use of data brokers that suck in public and purchased data sets for ad targeting
It no longer lets data brokers upload Managed Custom Audience lists of user contact info or power Partner Categories for targeting ads based
It also more adamantly demands that advertisers have the consent of users whose email addresses or phone numbers they upload for Custom
Audience targeting, though Facebook does little to verify that consent and advertisers could still buy data sets from brokers and upload
them themselves.
Facebook statement today shows more scruples than Google, which last year struck ad-targeting data deals with data brokers
that have access to 70 percent of credit and debit card transactions in the United States That led to a formal complaint to the FTC from
the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Cambridge Analytica has brought on an overdue era of scrutiny regarding privacy and how internet
Practices that were overlooked, accepted as industry standard or seen as just the way business gets done are coming under fire
Internet users aren''t likely to escape ads, and some would rather have those they see be relevant thanks to deep targeting data
But the combination of our offline purchase behavior with our online identities seems to trigger uproar absent from sites using cookies to
track our web browsing and buying.
Facebook probably better off backing away from anything that involves sensitive data like checking
account balances until Cambridge Analytica blows over and it proven its newfound sense of responsibility translates into a safer social
But at least for now, it not slurping up our banking data wholesale.
