South Africa, Dec. 24 -- The launch of Facebook's unified Facebook Pay system across its entire family of messaging apps hasn't just created the world's biggest payment platform. It's taken the existing payment universe and turned it on its head, with huge ramifications for how businesses and influencers monetise their social media presence.

The numbers are staggering. Messenger is the perfect vehicle to offer Facebook Pay, with over 100 billion messages shared every day. Facebook alone has 2.4 billion monthly active users. When you combine Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook Pay will have a vast active user and business base that will instantly compete with the likes of Visa and Mastercard, who have around 1 billion cr...