Mexican bank Banorte already allows its clients to send money to their contacts from text messages on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS or any other social network, the bank’s corporate reported.
The function is called Banorte Go and is available to all Banorte customers who have the Banorte Móvil application on their cell phone.
With Banorte Go, Banorte customers can choose any of their contacts and transfer them up to 8K pesos in a day, without the need to contact the bank’s customer.
The transaction is carried out without the need of any bank key or any other banking data, thus ensuring that the bank’s customers keep their bank information protected.
This transfer option works through the Banorte Keyboard. On the keyboard, you can see the Banorte logo which, when clicked on, displays the bank transfer options.
The amounts that can be sent from this option range from 100 to 8K Mexican pesos per day.
The new functionality only works with the Android system, which is used by 80% of Banorte’s customers. For the next quarter of the year, it is estimated that the function of the iOS system is ready.
Banorte, a second chance
Sending payments through social networks is not a new attempt by Banorte. In 2017, this bank launched Peper, an application that allowed sending and receiving balance through social networks. The way of employment was different from Banorte Go. With Peper, users needed to download an app that was linked to the Facebook account and WhatsApp to make the shipments.
In March of this year, WhatsApp also reported that it would launch a payment platform from its application, which would be available in its trial version in several countries, including Mexico.
It will probably still take some years to know if the use of social networks as channels for online payments will become popular in the coming years. If this is the case, we will see a new trend in e-commerce, where instant messaging will no longer be just a channel to communicate with the customer, but will also be consolidated as a sales channel.