Microsoft brings payments for businesses on Teams

Microsoft has collaborated with Stripe and PayPal to enable in-app payments for small businesses on Teams.

Late payments have become one of the most pressing challenges faced by businesses today. Data shows that 59% of small businesses experienced late payments from customers, and about one-third raised concern about their ability to continue as an ongoing concern because of it.

Teams Payments will let meeting hosts accept payments during virtual appointments, classes, sessions, webinars, or events. Customers can pay at any point during a meeting by connecting to their Stripe or PayPal accounts to facilitate transactions within a meeting setting. Additionally, hosts or businesses can also add an advance payment option for consumers looking to join a Teams session.

Connecting or signing up for one service – Stripe or PayPal – is required to set up the Teams Payments app, with support for GoDaddy in the cards. Consumers can also connect to more than one payments provider to have the flexibility of using different services for different types of transactions. 

Stripe accepts credit and debit card payments including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, while PayPal accepts PayPal wallet payments as well as credit and debit card payments from customers. 

Microsoft is tapping Stripe’s Stripe Connect to streamline payment acceptance and identity verification for transactions in Teams. Stripe Connect offers payment integration for platforms and marketplaces through its APIs. 

“We’re seeing that platforms are integrating payments in more places because it’s proving to solve more problems for more businesses,” Aakash Sahney, head of product, Stripe Connect at Stripe told Tearsheet.

“By partnering with Microsoft, we're able to reduce barriers to payments for businesses across all industries by integrating our solutions into the Teams platform, which has become a useful meeting place for consumers and businesses to engage.”

Microsoft Teams lets meeting hosts track the status of successful and/or failed payments  – whether the amount is received or outstanding – once a customer settles up.

Business customers with a Microsoft 365 or Teams subscription in the US and Canada can download the payments app in public preview at no charge. However, the global rollout of the new feature hasn’t been announced yet.