Facebook has reportedly asked several leading US banks to share financial information about their customers – including card transactions and checking-account balances.

As part of a push to become the portal where people buy goods and services, the social media platform has been in talks with the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook is said to be considering a feature within Messenger to let users check account balances and received fraud alerts outside of their own bank’s app or website.

The sticking point in negotiations with the banks has been the bad press of the Cambridge Analytica political data mining affair and privacy concerns which wiped more than $120 billion from Facebook’s market value late last month.

However, Facebook shares rose up 3.5 per cent after the potential bank tie-up news.

As part of the proposed deals, Facebook asked banks for information about where its users are shopping with their debit and credit cards outside of purchases made using Facebook Messenger.

Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said Messenger has around 1.3 billion monthly active users on the company’s second-quarter earnings call last month.

A Facebook spokesperson explained that customer data would not be used for advert targeting.

“Like many online companies, we routinely talk to financial institutions about how we can improve people’s commerce experiences, like enabling better customer service,” continued the statement.

Last year, Facebook partnered with PayPal to allow users to send money through Messenger, while Mastercard cardholders can place online orders with certain merchants through Messenger using the Masterpass digital wallet, and a deal with American Express allows Facebook users to contact the card company’s representatives.

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