If you thought that Farmville, Yoville, Mafia money were all like the Monopoly money, then here’s another twist in the tale for you. Behold, here comes, Facebook Credits and the whole new Face-Banking.

Much has been speculated about the role of Facebook credits in the global virtual economy. Facebook is not just about bonding, it’s also about banking. While people tend to associate currency with money, but the rise of the social web is forcing us to include many alternate kinds of capital that were formerly intangible. Non-Gamers seemed to have missed Facebook’s entry into the world of virtual currency, where Facebook credits cost 10 cents each and can be exchanged for game points or other gaming paraphernalia. These cents are piling up to become $2.1 billion in 2011, according to Inside Network.  You can now also purchase gift cards for Facebook Credits at Wal-Mart (WMT), Target (TGT), and Best Buy (BBY).

When everything is virtual, then keeping your money on the virtual platform does not seem like such a crazy idea after all. Jack Dorsey, Co-Creator of Twitter, started Square in 2009 to help local merchants accept credit cards with iPhones, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. There is so much money circulating all over that it needs to be monitored very closely, and what better than the webbed network to do the job. Brett King, author of Bank 2.0 says, “Increasingly as we move later into the decade, physical currency will be harder to differentiate from virtual currencies like Facebook Credits. We’ll start to see a new economy emerging through social media where virtual currencies will be a very real part of the way people trade and sell information, collaborate on ideas and value various products and services“.

Retailers are coming up with smarter ideas to use credits to lure people to interact with them and popularize their brand. For example, each time you take part in a poll by the company, or get new customers for the company, or even watch an advertisement, you may get credits that you can use to buy goods or as discounts. In the long run, Facebook credits can be used for microtransactions, or major transactions over long distances. Facebook could evolve into a Zopa and allow you to borrow or lend money to other Facebook users, thus truly engaging in the community.

“[Identity] will become the battleground within which this entire learning will take place, because today all the artifacts of a human being belong to physical and logical governments, and not to social networks. But the ability to move any form of asset between the virtual world and the physical world needs a commonality of understanding of identity“, said JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist for salesforce.com. How much faith you can put in to a company and how much you must invest will also be a crucial factor that Facebook can influence. Brett King points out, “Social metrics, and the use of platforms like Facebook will have very real feedback in respect to the valuation of a brand economically, and obviously that will have an effect directly on revenues that are possible for providers in that space. So unless you’re playing in the social brand space, unless you’re engaged in the conversation, your social metrics are gonna be affected in a negative way, and that will have an effect on revenue, profitability, and the value of your brand“.

Facebook already is a storehouse of a lot of personal information, and with the virtual economic boon, it will have access to sensitive financial information as well. We must exercise caution while banking, but also welcome the winds of change, since they make our lives easier.