According to "Inside Facebook"  the company has temporarily abandoned its initiative to launch a platform payment system which would enable retailers to conduct e-commerce transactions and accept payments directly inside their Facebook applications." 

Facebook announced the beta test version of a payments platform initiative in December 2007. It was originally billed as a means to allow Facebook users to carry out transactions and purchase virtual and physical goods and services without resorting to third party payment platforms such as Paypal.

Facebook Payments was also initially designed to act as a revenue generator for Facbook via payment processing commissions, and a means for the social networking website to gather consumer data to facilitate future direct transactions such as the purchase of Facebook’s virtual gift offerings.

However, one year after the initiative was made public, the payment system has not yet been developed and Facebook representatives have confirmed that no further developments are currently conducted regarding the project.