With digital payments picking up pace across the globe, social media giant Facebook is extending its payment services to online retailers.

Shopify has become the first e-commerce platform to sign up for Facebook Pay. This will allow Shopify merchants to offer Facebook Pay as a payment option during checkout, eliminating the need to re-enter payment information for every transaction.

Prior to this, Facebook Pay, which was launched in 2019, was available for its main platform, as well as WhatsApp and Instagram.

The feature will be expanded across more platforms in the US starting this August.

The development comes not long after Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project went belly up.

Moreover, the global digital payments scene heating up with the likes of Google, Apple and PayPal throwing their hat in the ring.

It comes as no surprise that Facebook is looking to leverage its huge customer base to establish itself as a major digital payments player.

Moreover, a report by The Verge points out that this may be another tactic by the controversy-laced firm to collect more customer data.

According to its privacy policy, Facebook Pay will collect purchase information including payment method, transaction date, billing, shipping and contact details.

Moreover, Facebook Pay stores card and bank account numbers in an encrypted format, its privacy policy notes. Additionally, Facebook Pay will also use this information to deliver targeted content and ads.

In 2019, Facebook was slammed by US regulators with a record fine for data privacy violations.

Earlier this year, Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s new privacy policies landed the instant messaging platform amidst a heated controversy.

This article first appeared on fintechnews.ch