The president of PayPal is jumping ship to Facebook to oversee the social network's messaging app.
David Marcus will become VP of messaging products at Facebook with focus on the firm's in-house Messenger app and not the newly acquired WhatsApp.
Using Marcus' experience, Facebook is looking to add e-commerce capabilities to its social network. Google has already rolled out its own Google Wallet and lets US users transfer money using Gmail. Chinese messaging service, WeChat also allows users to book taxis through the app.
I'm excited to go to Facebook to lead Messaging Products.
Facebook's Messenger app currently exchanges 12 billion messages a day and has over 200 million users. However, last month the firm removed the ability to send private messages from within the Facebook app, requiring them to install the standalone Messenger app to instant message.
Marcus claimed that it was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who convinced him to join.
"Mark shared a compelling vision about Mobile Messaging. At first, I didn't know whether another big company gig was a good thing for me, but Mark's enthusiasm, and the unparalleled reach and consumer engagement of the Facebook platform ultimately won me over," he posted on LinkedIn.
"[I'm] looking forward to getting my hands dirty again attempting to build something new and meaningful at scale."
