After Google and WhatsApp, now Microsoft enables digital payments on its platform

It seems like the digital payments segment in India is becoming the playground for global behemoths.

In the last six months, both Google and WhatsApp have launched their digital payment services; Microsoft is the latest entrant in this race.

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has enabled digital payments services on its work management application, Microsoft Kaizala by integrating services with YES BANK and MobiKwik, leveraging these organisations’ mobile payment infrastructure.

Partnering on both the wallet and UPI (Unified Payments Interface), Microsoft Kaizala will have the option to make peer-to-peer payments in one-to-one and group chat conversations via the MobiKwik wallet or via YES BANK’s state-of-the-art Unified Payment Interface (UPI) integration.

Further, this UPI payment integration on Microsoft Kaizala works with all 86 banks that are already participating in UPI.

Launched in July last year, Microsoft Kaizala, a mobile-only product designed for large group communications and work management, enables organisations to take business workflows to its Firstline workforce.

How will it help?

By enabling payments, organisations will now be able to disburse micro-payments, enable bill expense reimbursements, and pay travel allowances on the go to its mobile workforce.

Speaking on the development, Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Office Product Group, Microsoft, said,

“When we launched Microsoft Kaizala for India in July 2017, we provided consumers as well as businesses with a secure chat platform to collaborate and be productive, on the go. Microsoft Kaizala is used by thousands of organisations across different industry verticals for their day-to-day workflows today and is growing. Payment transactions within the app was a key demand from our users for getting work done and we are happy to offer it today in collaboration with YES Bank and MobiKwik.”

Bipin Preet Singh, Founder and CEO, Mobikwik, said,

“The diversity of user base that can be reached out via Microsoft Kaizala is tremendous. With this association, we will be able to take peer-to-peer payments to users across hundreds of organisations in diverse industries, including government departments. We are confident that this association will go a long way in helping us reach out to a whole new set of users in the country.”

According to Microsoft, Kaizala is being used by over 900 organisations, including YES BANK, State Bank of India, Apollo Telemedicine, Narayana Hrudyalaya, United Phosphorous, and Government of Andhra Pradesh among others.

However, this association only means that Microsoft will introduce more and more digital payment players to integrate to the service. While going the partnership route, this development is different from Google and WhatsApp who are launching their own payment capabilities.

In October last year, Google launched its digital payments app Tez while WhatsApp has been piloting its digital payment service since February this year.