Now, Facebook Messenger Chatbots will allow businesses to sell directly to consumers

In a new announcement, Facebook's new online payment system will allow businesses to sell directly to consumers using the Messenger application.

"Customers can check out with a few easy clicks, without ever leaving the Messenger app," the company said in a statement.

By turning it into an e-commerce platform, it seems like Facebook is taking a step to monetize its free messaging application, which is used by over a billion people.

The announcement comes after Facebook, earlier this year, opened up Messenger to developers to create new applications and "bots" which can interact with users. These bots can provide information but consumers who wanted to make a purchase had to be directed to an external website. Developers have created more than 30,000 bots for Messenger, and many more developers are working on applications.

"We believe the potential for the Messenger platform is huge, and we continue to invest in making it better for developers to build and create," the statement said.

"Moving forward, we are also simplifying the payment and checkout experience in order to reduce the overall friction between wanting something and getting it. People can use their payment information already stored on Messenger and Facebook to check out faster in Messenger threads."