We don’t want to leave our couch to order pizza, so of course we don’t want to leave our messaging platforms to pay for things either. PayPal understands this, and on Tuesday the online payment system introduced its very first bot, which makes it possible for users on the team messaging platform Slack to send money between PayPal accounts without ever leaving their conversation. Because why use two apps when you can just use one, right?
Sending money is now as easy as typing “/PayPal send $10 to @Sam.” So whether you’re paying someone back for that power breakfast or chipping in for a birthday cake, you can do it all while working.
“At PayPal, we’re focused on offering our customers a variety of innovative, easy and secure ways to move and manage their money,” the payment system wrote in a blog post announcement. “With this in mind, we built on the Slack platform to launch PayPal’s very first bot.” Indeed, bots are becoming ever more ubiquitous — Gartner predicts that by 2020, the average person will have more interactions with bots than with his or her partner. A frightening thought, to be sure.
All the same, the widespread availability of bots can certainly add convenience to your life. After all, bots can help you do everything from plan a trip on Expedia to get your fast food faster with Burger King. And peer-to-peer payment systems have also proven wildly popular, with apps like Venmo, Xoom, and of course, PayPal processing $41 billion in payments in 2015 alone. So naturally, combining these two pieces of technology seems only natural.
To use the new PayPal bot on Slack, simply install the new feature on the Slack App Directory. Then, link your PayPal account and set your preferred transaction settings, including when you want to review and approve transactions. Currently, the bot is available for Slack users in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States.
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