Communication collapse: Inside Facebook’s tussle with Brazil’s central bank

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) – Allowing millions of Brazilian users of Facebook’s WhatsApp to send money as easily as texts seemed a golden opportunity for the world’s largest social media company.

The ubiquitous messaging service was finally entering the financial services arena with a payment service in Latin America’s largest economy, after years of questions over how Facebook would make money from it.

The June launch, years in the planning, was meant to be the pilot for a potential global rollout – but eight days after going live, the central bank pulled the plug on it.

The shock decision underscores the challenge for Facebook in trying to win over financial regulators and the complexities facing watchdogs in assessing the risks of letting tech giants, with their vast network of users, loose in their world.