Germany, meanwhile, has just 3 million Viber users, but Eyal described it as a “strong corridor” for transfers to Greece. Greece is what he described as a “purple country,” where Viber is installed on the phones of some 91% of smartphone users in the country, working out to 7 million Viber users in a population of 10.7 million, and making P2P transfer more viable (there is an option to transfer money to non-Viber users, but it is less seamless, he said). Viber CEO Ofir Eyal said the reasons for starting with these two countries first were strategic. 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. Services like payments to businesses likely will have some fees attached.

Peer-to-peer transfers will be the first of these services to launch, and these will be free. Linked to other bank accounts as well as Visa and Mastercard, Payments wallets can in turn be used to make bill payments and buy goods, as well as transfer money to other individuals.

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. 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.

What is viber payments