Microsoft, Stripe Now Enable You to Pay Bills from Inside Outlook

Companies are constantly making it easier and easier for us to spend our money. But that’s a good thing for our creditors.

Stripe and Microsoft are going a level further than the usual point-and-click or swipe the credit card to enable purchasing. Now when you get a bill emailed to you, you can pay it in seconds directly from your Outlook email app using Microsoft Pay or any of its competitors.

At the Microsoft Build 2018 Developer Conference in Seattle May 7, Stripe announced that it is now working with Microsoft to facilitate this new payment function in Outlook, which will allow Office users to securely process invoices and make payments via email.

Using the Stripe software inside the app, hundreds of millions of Outlook users will be able to immediately pay invoices and bills in 135 currencies (and counting) from right inside their inbox, the company said.

This simplicity is bound to give the economy a good jolt. This “easy button” also puts Microsoft Pay squarer on the map in its competition with Apple Pay, Samung Pay and others, such as PayPal.

San Francisco-based Stripe started out in 2010 by developing a set of unified APIs and tools that enables businesses to accept and manage online payments for any type of credit or debit card. Since then, it has used that network experience to branch out in new sectors around secure mobile payments.

“Stripe’s goal is to increase the GDP of the internet, which we do by providing the tools and infrastructure that make it easier to transact online from anywhere in the world,” Richard Alfonsi, head of global revenue and growth at Stripe, said in a media advisory.

“This allows anyone receiving an email invoice or bill in Outlook to immediately take action and pay that invoice with a few simple clicks. By removing the friction and time needed to complete a payment, Stripe and Microsoft can help businesses around the world reduce missed or late payments, ultimately increasing their revenue.”

Stripe creates a frictionless experience that lets users with existing Microsoft Pay accounts complete a payment in just a few clicks, or by entering new card details. Customers are able to make payments directly within Outlook, without any need to click through links to launch a new browser window or sign in to any additional accounts.

Using Stripe Connect―Stripe’s product for multi-sided marketplaces and platforms used by companies such as Shopify, Salesforce and Facebook―Stripe securely processes the payment from the end-customer (on one side) and ensures the business that originally generated the invoice (on the other) gets paid in a timely manner, the company said.

Stripe at the same time formally announced support for Microsoft Pay, a digital wallet service for customers to securely store their payment and shipping details in their Microsoft accounts. Without any additional work, the hundreds of thousands of businesses that run on Stripe can now accept payments in their websites or apps from these customers via Microsoft Pay.

In addition to Microsoft Pay, Stripe also supports other digital payment methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay and others.

For more information, go here.