Internet advertising news site Adotas is speculating that Facebook may be adding ecommerce capabilities to its site.

According to the report (based on a Job Ads classified placed by Facebook):

Facebook is building a “payments operation” team and looking for a strategist and a payment and risks specialist.

The payment operations team will monitor and report on all money coming into Facebook:

“Projects driven by Payment Operations team members will potentially contribute millions of dollars to Facebook’s business, as well as enable the company to scale and expand its operations in the coming years.”

The article goes on to speculate that “a long-term goal appears to be setting up a system that would rival PayPal, allowing users to buy goods and services from third-party e-commerce sites.”

It’s an interesting notion, and certainly consistent with Facebook’s closed architecture model.

It’s also worth noting, as Michael Zeuthen did  in the comments to the article, that PayPal’s co-founder, Peter Thiel, invested a half a million dollars in baby-Facebook. That could be seen as an impediment to any Facebook payment system; or, conversely, Mr Thiel’s expertise could be tapped to speed up any rollout.

From a New Zealand ecommerce perspective, the article simply highlights the need to keep an eye on developments in the social sphere, which is by far the fastest-growing segment of the Internet right now.