Card transfer via messenger: TalkBank raises ₽218.36M

One tab is for texting, the other for credit processing. TalkBank, which is developing a FinTech platform and a messenger-based virtual bank, has raised ₽218.36 M. IIDF, founders of venture capital fund G&K, JointJourney and other investors participated in the round.

MTS was the lead investor — the company will invest more than half of the amount, while the size of the stake acquired was not disclosed. The two companies are jointly developing the MTS Bank Now bot. The project is a hybrid of MTS Bank’s API and TalkBank’s chatbot technologies. Once launched in Russia this summer, it will be able to help with virtual card processing and p2p transfers. By the end of the year, it plans to be “trained” to apply for deposits and loans, as well as to open accounts.

Non-banks are the driving force behind the FinTech industry. In turn, such formats of interaction with the banking system through messengers are not only a response to the trend towards “super-apps”, but also a turn towards the new spending generation. Facebook, in its market research for Generation Z, called them “the spending powerhouse”: just in the US in 2019, the generation was spending an estimated $143B when this research was released. And in turn, most of its members are statistically constantly online, hardly experiencing parting with a smartphone in their hands. At the same time, messengers are among the leading apps in terms of the amount of time spent on them — they are only 1–2% behind social networks.