The enterprise’s goal for Microsoft Teams is to bring together communication and collaboration tools in a single place, ranging from chat and meetings to apps and files—and now payments.
The launch of the Payments app, which is as of now in public preview in the Teams Store, enables small businesses in North America to collect and manage payments from within Teams, both on desktop and mobile devices, during business conversations. To do so, the company collaborated with GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe aiming to help SMBs increase revenue and simplify how customers interact with them.
Stripe’s press release details that the company is set to power Teams Payments, enabling real-time card payment acceptance for meeting hosts during virtual appointments, classes, events, and others. Additionally, businesses can set advance payment via Stripe as a requirement for joining a Teams session.
Microsoft is leveraging Stripe Connect to simplify payment acceptance and identity verification for transactions in Teams, with Stripe handling the onboarding requirements when merchants sign up for Teams Payments to help them get paid. Additionally, Microsoft will use Connect to programmatically route funds from customers to merchants once the payment is made.
Brenna Robinson, general manager, SMB at Microsoft, advised that the partnership with Stripe is set to help unlock new revenue streams for companies on Teams Payments, enabling the company to better serve its customers, deepen Teams’ impact, and ‘boost revenue growth. Per the announcement, as 93% are faced with late payments from customers, businesses on Teams Payments and Stripe can accept payments before, during, or after a virtual session, and access the funds in a matter of seconds.
GoDaddy is among the commerce providers selected by Microsoft for the launch, and the integration of GoDaddy Payments' commerce capabilities within Microsoft Teams aims to help businesses better transact with customers and get paid for services at that moment, instead of days/weeks later. To do so, SMBs should use Teams Payments and sync their GoDaddy Payments account to start collecting and managing payments within Teams.
Commenting on the collaboration, President of GoDaddy Commerce Osama Bedier advised that the company has been building its commerce platform to help SMBs accept payments anywhere, and the expansion to Teams’ meetings marks a ‘natural extension’ in doing so. The companies share a mission of empowering SMBs and are looking forward to partnering to help them transact in new ways.
PayPal’s announcement details that SMBs know that digital wallet users shop approximately 19% more frequently than traditional payment users, and as such, they require tools that enable them to interact with customers and accept payments in a simplified manner. Having this knowledge, PayPal partnered with Microsoft to enable payments via Microsoft Teams directly into an SMB’s PayPal account.
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