Chatbot payments are now live on Viber with a global premiere in Ukraine

Kyiv, November 19, 2020, Rakuten Viber, the leading messaging platform for free and secure communication announced that native chatbot payments are now available in Ukraine. Users are able to purchase from a handful of verified merchants directly through Viber and pay with Google Pay or other native mobile wallet. Ukraine is the first market where the service is up and running on the eve of Viber's 10th anniversary, proving the strategic role of the market for the Japanese-owned communication app.

With the new functionality already live, users are able to make fast, easy and secure instant payments for different goods and services through Viber’s verified chatbot merchants. Among the first partners onboarded for the service are Portmone chatbot, where users can make mobile top-ups and even pay for medical tests in Synevo’s chatbot. More information on the service and a full list of verified merchants can be found in the official “Платіжні Viber боти” community.

“I am very happy to announce the global launch of chatbot payments on our platform first in Ukraine. The market has been an instrumental part of Rakuten Viber success over the past decade and we’re constantly looking for new opportunities to expand our ecosystem and introduce a wider portfolio of services. This brings us one step further to our goal of becoming an utility app offering various solutions helping our tens of millions users to organize easily and safely their everyday life.” - shares Anna Znamenskaya, Chief Growth Officer of Rakuten Viber.

Now users can make payments for different goods and services directly in the app through authorized chatbots if their bank supports such service. All they need to do is add a credit or debit card to their native smartphone wallet and the payment option becomes available in all verified chatbots with a blue tick mark on Viber. For business - they need simply to connect to a payment provider that supports such types of payments, create a chatbot and enable payments on it. Viber is currently partnering with a few trusted chatbot development companies among which is Corezoid Hyperautomation Engine.