MasterCard is getting more into the bot game. Or rather, it’s helping others make payments through bots easier. The company has announced that its MasterPass digital wallet system will now be compatible with a slew of Facebook Messenger bots, including bots from FreshDirect, Subway, and The Cheesecake Factory. What this means is that users will be able to use MasterPass to complete transactions through those apps, without having to enter critical credit card information directly into the chat windows.
MasterPass-enabled bots will work across a range of different services — including retail stores, restaurants, and more. The news isn’t all that surprising — MasterCard actually announced a MasterPass-enabled bot called Getir last month, and it’s likely we’ll see more bots with payment capabilities like this come in as time goes on.
Using MasterPass-enabled bots is pretty easy. All you have to do is select to pay with MasterPass when you’re checking out after selecting an item to buy, then enter your MasterPass password, and you’ll be able to buy it quickly and securely.
MasterCard isn’t the only company working on payments through bots. A few months ago, PayPal launched a bot for Slack, aimed specifically at making it easier for users to send payments through the Slack app. While we have yet to see PayPal work with any third-party developers to integrate PayPal payments into their services, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising.
We’ll likely see more companies leverage bots for purchases over the next few years. Bots are tipped to completely change how we interact with companies — while we would have once used a company’s app to interact with that company on our smartphone, bots are much easier and quicker to use. Not only that, but most people don’t want to download an app for one store, and with bots there are no downloads necessary.
