According to PYMNTS.com, Elavon, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank, has introduced Elavon Live Payments, a new app integrated directly with Microsoft 365. The app works within the Outlook email interface and Microsoft Teams, allowing users to create and send invoices, process PCI-compliant payments, and get real-time tracking without switching apps. Pari Sawant, Elavon’s global chief product officer, says this will save “countless hours” and reduce Days Sales Outstanding. Tyler Pichach, Microsoft’s global head of banking and payments strategy, added it helps “streamline productivity.” This move follows U.S. Bank’s stated goal in June to embed payments into daily software. Meanwhile, Microsoft reported on Wednesday, January 28, that its Microsoft 365 Productivity and Business Processes segment saw revenue grow 16% to $34.1 billion in Q2 of fiscal 2026.
The Convenience Play
Look, the pitch here is simple and honestly pretty compelling. How many times have you gotten an email about an invoice, then had to log into a separate portal, download a PDF, and then go to your accounting software to mark it as paid? It’s a mess. The idea of just clicking a button inside the email thread itself to pay or send an invoice is a no-brainer for reducing friction. Elavon’s Jordan Owen nailed it in an April interview: it’s about making payments work in the background so merchants can just run their business. For SMBs drowning in admin work, this could be a lifeline. And for Microsoft, it’s another sticky feature that makes their 365 ecosystem, which just posted $34.1 billion in revenue last quarter, even more indispensable.
Skepticism And Integration Hell
But here’s the thing. We’ve seen this “seamless integration” story before. The devil is always in the implementation details. Will it *truly* be a smooth, one-click experience, or will it be a clunky add-on that requires five extra permissions and breaks every time Outlook updates? Microsoft’s own history with third-party integrations in Teams and Outlook is… mixed. And let’s talk about the audience. This seems squarely aimed at B2B service providers—consultants, freelancers, agencies. But are those users, who might already have established workflows with QuickBooks, Stripe, or PayPal, really going to switch their entire payment processing stack for this? Convincing them to change financial partners is a much heavier lift than just adopting a new productivity app.
The Bigger Battle For The Background
This announcement is really a single move in a massive, ongoing war. It’s the war to own the “embedded finance” layer inside all the software we use every day. Banks and payment processors like Elavon are desperate to be the plumbing inside the walls of platforms like Microsoft, Salesforce, or Shopify. They know if they’re not, they risk becoming irrelevant utilities. So this isn’t just about sending invoices from Outlook. It’s about Elavon securing its future by embedding itself into the daily workflow of millions of Microsoft 365 users. The risk for them is that they become just another option in a crowded marketplace of add-ins. The prize is becoming the default, invisible payment rail for a huge chunk of business commerce. It’s a smart bet, but the table is getting crowded.
