Microsoft’s Outlook is probably most commonly associated with being an email service. However as we have seen with Google’s Gmail, an email service can be more than just a place to store emails, such as sending/receiving money. The good news for Outlook users is that it looks like some conveniences will be headed your way soon.According to an announcement on Microsoft’s Dev Center, it seems that a future update to Outlook will soon let users pay their bills through the platform. “We will soon be introducing payments in Outlook to help users to pay bills or invoices, right in email, without needing to switch to another app or service. Powered by Microsoft Pay, payments in Outlook is a fast and secure way to pay from within email.”
In terms of payments processors, Microsoft has also announced that Stripe and Braintree will be supported at the start, but others are expected to be added in the future. In terms of companies that will support bill payment through Outlook, the onus is on the companies to take advantage of the feature.
This means that not all bills will support this feature, but the option is there for companies to embed the payment action if they choose to. The offer will also not be available to all Outlook users at first as Microsoft plans on rolling it out in phases, so if you are an Outlook user and you don’t see the option available to you, not to worry as it should eventually find its way to you.