When Facebook first welcomed 3rd party applications, Lending Club caused a stir with its peer-to-peer money exchange. While others like Prosper had paved the way for small online loans, only Lending Club dared to integrate its services into a social network. Today, Facecard aims to improve upon the model by expanding its pre-paid MasterCard service. As of tomorrow, the company will officially emerge from beta with a slew of new features including parental controls, alerts and most importantly, this Facebook application.
In the past, parents have loaded Facecards with cash via their computers or mobile phones and used them to monitor their teen’s spending with a web-based dashboard. Because the Facecard is pre-paid, it has an advantage over regular cards. There is no risk of overdraft or lapsed payments. For those who’d like to give gifts or lend money to friends, the service also allows you to send money directly to other Facecard members.
As of today, after linking your Facecard to the new Facebook application, you can give money in three additional ways:
1. Messages: In the same way that users email money to their friends via PayPal, Facecard allows users to send money to friends and family within the Facebook network using the message service.
2. Wish List: Users can add items to their wish list and notify friends of the items they are saving towards. From here, your friends and family donate portions of cash towards that goal. While this has great potential for birthdays and Christmas, this is also a fantastic tool for nonprofit fundraisers.
3. Thinking of You: This service allows users to send small gifts to each other via Facebook. Rather than simply purchasing an image of a coffee for someone’s birthday, you can actually give them both the image and a cash donation towards a real coffee. As with virtual gifts, friends can then choose to display these gifts on their wall.
In addition to each of these lending and gifting options, users are also able to monitor their spending via an in-site application dashboard. The service monitors the client’s current balance as well as their transaction history. To test out the application, visit this link and sign up for a Facecard account.
