What Happened
Facebook Messenger is about to get a lot better at handling your money, as five major financial services launched or upgraded their services on Facebook’s popular messaging app in tandem with Facebook’s F8 event. On Tuesday, Western Union and MoneyGram both launched Facebook Messenger bots for handling cash transfers, while Wells Fargo announced it is testing a Facebook Messenger bot for basic banking tasks such as checking account balances and transferring between accounts. In addition, Mastercard also announced that its Masterpass online payment service will power select Messenger bots, allowing them to take payment from MasterCard, as well as from banks like Citi and Capital One.
What Brands Need To Do
Last fall, Facebook rolled out the Messenger Payments API, which works with services like PayPal to add payment support to chatbots. Now with more and more banks and financial services getting on Messengers, customers will have increasingly convenient access to their money without leaving the chat app, which, in turn, would accustom them to the idea of buying stuff on Messenger and open the door for conversational commerce. As the online banking experience continues to evolve from a website-based experience to modular service integrations on popular platforms, banks and financial service brands will need to adapt to the changing consumer habits by developing conversational experiences to allow easy access and management.
For more news on what Facebook announced at this year’s F8 developer conference, please check out our latest Fast Forward analysis.
Source: VentureBeat
