Facebook Parent Company Meta Platforms Inc Acquires Meta Financial Group To Acquire “Meta” Trademark

Meta Platform Inc now owns the Meta trademark. (photo: doc. poixabay)

JAKARTA – Meta Platforms Inc, owner of social media network Facebook, is behind a $60 million deal to acquire trademark assets of US regional bank Meta Financial Group. Certainty of this acquisition was disclosed by a spokesman for the company on Monday, December 13.

The deal underscores how valuable the “Meta” name is to the tech giant, who is betting that its focus on the metaverse, a shared digital space accessed over the internet via multiple devices, will pay off handsomely in the years to come.

Meta Financial said in a regulatory filing Monday that a Delaware company called Beige Key LLC agreed to acquire worldwide rights to its company name for $60 million in cash. This contract does not reveal who owns the Beige Key.

"Beige Key is affiliated with us and we have acquired this trademark asset," a spokesperson for Meta Platform was quoted as saying by Reuters. A MetaBank spokesperson also confirmed Meta Platform's involvement in this purchase contract.

In addition to offering products through MetaBank's subsidiaries, including consumer savings, loans and credit cards, and commercial loans, Meta Financial partners with institutions such as government agencies and financial technology companies to offer banking services with the aim of strengthening financial inclusion.

Facebook said in October that its parent company had changed its name to Meta Platforms. The tech giant has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality. They also see the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet.

Last week, Meta Platforms opened its previously invite-only Horizon Worlds app, where Quest virtual reality headset users can play games and interact as avatars, to more than 18 users in the United States and Canada.

The metaverse concept, which has emerged on the earnings call of several Silicon Valley companies and which will require collaboration among other tech giants, could be more than a decade away from being fully realized. But they have pioneered it since now

A spokesperson for Meta Platform said the company had been in discussions with Meta Financial before the Facebook name change was announced.

In the filing, Meta Financial said it had begun a review of its brand strategy earlier this year, but a MetaBank spokesperson declined to comment on negotiations beyond the content of the filing.

Meta Financial shares are now trading 1.5% lower in afternoon trade, giving it a market cap of around $1.74 billion. In contrast, Meta Platforms was up 1.6%, worth 933 billion US dollars.