Financial infrastructure platform Stripe has partnered with Microsoft to launch Teams Payments, a feature that enables North American businesses to accept payments directly in Microsoft Teams.
The platform offers video conferencing, messaging, voice as well as other embedded tools, serving over 300 million global businesses. Stripe will power Teams Payments, allowing meeting hosts to accept real-time card payments during virtual appointments, classes plus events.
The partnership opens up new revenue streams for companies on Teams Payments, said Brenna Robinson, general manager of SMB at Microsoft.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Stripe to help unlock new revenue streams for companies on Teams Payments,” said Robinson. “Our collaboration allows us to better serve our customers, deepen the impact of Teams, and boost revenue growth.”
Accepting payments
Businesses can also set advance payment through Stripe as a requirement to join a Teams session. The chat prompts participants to make a live payment. This feature streamlines payment acceptance and identity verification for transactions in Teams using Stripe Connect. With Connect, businesses can accept payments from customers before, during, or after a virtual session, and access funds in seconds.
Late payments from customers can be problematic for businesses, with 93 per cent reporting that they have to deal with them. By accepting payments through Teams Payments and Stripe, businesses can prevent cash flow problems and protect their balance sheets. For instance, an online yoga instructor can now request payments from students within a Teams chat.
Stripe handles the onboarding requirements to help businesses get paid when they sign up for Teams Payments. Microsoft will use Connect to programmatically route funds from customers to merchants after a payment has been made.
Mike Clayville, chief revenue officer at Stripe, said: “Our partnership brings Stripe into one of the world’s most popular collaboration platforms and will help millions of companies accelerate their online revenue growth. With Stripe, more businesses can now accept payments as easily as launching a video conference, chat, or virtual presentation within Microsoft Teams.”
Teams Payments is now available in preview in the Teams App store and to customers with a Microsoft 365 or Teams subscription in the US and Canada.
