Viber, the messaging app owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, has long been dancing around the area of fintech, launching services like money transfer and chatbot payments in various countries over the years. Now it is making a move to double down on that strategy: it’s launching Payments on Viber — a new service that will let users set up digital wallets tied to their Viber accounts. Linked to other bank accounts as well as Visa and Mastercard, Payment’s wallets can in turn be used to make bill payments and buy goods, as well as transfer money to other individuals. Peer-to-peer transfers will be the first of these services to launch, and these will be free. Services like payments to businesses likely will have some fees attached. The service is being launched first in two markets — Germany and Greece — with the plan being to extend that to the rest of Europe, and then Viber’s wider global footprint of 180 countries, this year and next.
Viber has a large team of engineers working on its app — in addition to voice and video calls and text messaging, it provides a complement of other media and third-party integrations for users. But interestingly, this turn to fintech is being done in partnership with an outside partner. The idea with Payments is thus two-fold: it’s there to provide a service to Viber’s existing users to increase engagement and make the app stickier; and it’s there to potentially attract new people to the platform.