BillHero Announces First Facebook Messenger Bot to Pay Bills

FORT COLLINS, CO--(Marketwired - Jul 6, 2016) - Colorado-based fintech company, BillHero, has announced its entry into the Facebook space with a new Messenger banking chat bot. BillHero is the first-to-market -- and first approved -- app to utilize a chat bot for paying bills.

"We're always pushing BillHero to be more convenient and simple to use," says BillHero's CEO, Dan Holt. "With millennials as our main users, it makes sense to give them an easy, secure way to pay their bills -- right from their most used social platform."

Holt explains how BillHero fits into the evolution of Facebook Messenger. "As BillHero continues to evolve, we've been closely following Mark Zuckerberg's growing interest in incorporating artificial intelligence into Facebook software and, more specifically, Chatbots," Holt says. "His overall vision of Messenger bots is to increase the speed and efficacy of interactions between users and businesses on the platform. This is exactly what we're doing for BillHero users when it comes to paying bills."

Other available banking bots only provide information related to bank or credit card account activity, and don't actually pay bills. For BillHero users, paying a bill is now faster than ever. Using the Messenger bill paying chat bot, users can quickly ask BillHero to add new bills or pay existing bills. "It's like sending a message to a friend, except we can pay your bill at the end of a conversation," says Holt.

BillHero is bank-agnostic, meaning users can pay any bill with any bank account, debit card or credit card. And since the company is partially owned by a bank and is being developed by banking security experts, BillHero naturally subscribes to bank-grade measures. Current users of the app can expect all the safety of the app translated to the Messenger bill pay chat bot. Right now, users can select from existing payment methods within their app, but only non-sensitive information is pushed through the chat (like the last four digits of a credit or debit card). Once a new chat session begins, BillHero will also send the user a one-time authentication code that will authorize the Messenger thread for that session only, creating a more secure bill pay environment.

Kelly McDuffie, Director of Engineering, says, "As our development team continues to bring this bill pay bot feature to fruition, we're being cognizant of the security measures needed to safeguard our users' data. We look forward to continuing our work with the Messenger team at Facebook to take advantage of enhanced security features and new functionality to our bot that will make for an optimal user experience."

To learn more about BillHero's Messenger banking chat bot, click here, or read more on our blog.

About BillHero
BillHero is empowering the millennial generation to pay and manage bills in a way it's never been done before: through a mobile-first, bank-agnostic, all-in-one solution. The free app is ideal for college students and young professionals in shared living environments, as well as anyone who's interested in simplifying bill management. Directly pay 7,500+ billers, add bills instantly with PicturePay® and EmailPay, easily split bills with roommates, and send and collect money directly within the app. With BillHero, pay bills your way -- the smart way.