Facebook Messenger chatbots now support payments

Facebook has added payment support in its messaging app via chatbots wherein customers will now be able to make payments directly within Messenger without sending users to an external website, a media report said.

In April, small artificial intelligence software programmes chatbots landed on Facebook Messenger that allow users to interact with businesses and get updates from them.

"Thirty-four thousand developers have joined the platform and built 30,000 bots in the April launch, up from over 10,000 developers in May and 11,000 bots in July," Techcrunch.com quoted David Marcus, Head, Facebook Messenger, as saying.

The payment support will be available with Messenger Platform v1.2 and allows customers to click on a new "Buy Now" button which will lead them to a page where they can input credit card information, and other related information.

The credit card information that people have already stored in Facebook or Messenger can be used to instantly make purchases in bots. Facebook is working with all the major payment processing companies including Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard and American Express, the report added.