AUSTIN, Texas & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) today unveiled a digital “swipe” product enhancement for Visa Checkout that allows shoppers to complete their online purchase by sliding a virtual image of their credit, debit or prepaid card across the screen of a smartphone, tablet or laptop. The dynamic, new interactive button brings an engaging new way to pay with Visa Checkout, especially on mobile devices with smaller screens.
In 2014, Visa first introduced the Visa Checkout lightbox, which lets consumers pay online, on any device, without being redirected from the merchant’s site or app. The new interactive button streamlines the payment experience even further. Now, instead of a lightbox, a consumer sees a picture of her card on the Visa Checkout button, swipes it to the right, and simply enters her password inside the button itself to authenticate.
The interactive button is now available globally to merchants selling digital goods and services – such as music, movies, airline seats, and tickets – or items that customers purchase online and pick up in a physical store. Visa will extend the interactive button functionality to Visa Checkout merchants who ship goods in the coming months.
To continue advancing design innovation, this weekend in Austin, TX, developers can incorporate the interactive button using the Visa Checkout API (from the recently launched Visa Developer Platform) as part of their contest entries in The Everywhere API Challenge, which kick-offs Visa’s 2016 Everywhere Initiative on March 12.
“Visa Checkout’s new interactive button is yet another way we are designing the future of online checkout and delivering on our promise to bring the simplicity of the swipe to any device,” said Sam Shrauger, senior vice president of Visa’s digital solutions. “This new experience brings digital payments one step closer to the ease, trust and familiarity that consumers have long valued from Visa in the physical world.”
Recent pilot tests have shown that enrolled Visa Checkout customers who used the interactive button were twice as likely to “click-through” and complete their purchase, compared to the existing Visa Checkout experience — which already boasts an industry leading conversion rate of 86 percent1. Visa Checkout participants visiting Pizza Hut, for example, were roughly twice as likely to “click-through” and pay with the Visa Checkout interactive button, while those visiting the Virgin America and Fandango websites were each more than 1.3 times as likely, when compared to the original Visa Checkout lightbox.
A recent Visa consumer survey2 found that more than two-thirds (67 percent) of millennial respondents, ages 18 to 34, reported making a purchase using their smartphone or tablet. Roughly 45 percent of millennials surveyed said they made an online purchase at least a few times a month, compared to about 40 percent of older respondents.
“This design-led innovation is proven to increase conversion, helping merchants reach new customers — especially millennials, who are increasingly using their mobile devices to make purchases,” said Shrauger.
One of the fastest-growing consumer products in the company’s history, Visa Checkout now has more than 11 million consumer accounts. Hundreds of thousands of large and small merchants and 600 financial institution partners now offer Visa Checkout in 16 countries around the world, and expansion to five European countries and India will take place by the end of 2016. Visa Checkout merchants represent some of the biggest retailers on the internet, including Best Buy, Fandango, Gap, Neiman Marcus, Pizza Hut, Staples, Rakuten, Under Armour, Virgin America, Williams Sonoma and zulily. For a full list of participating merchants, and to learn more about Visa Checkout’s benefits for merchants, issuers and consumers alike, visit www.visacheckout.com.
About Visa Inc.
Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world's most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead of time with prepaid or pay later with credit products.
For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa, visacorporate.tumblr.com and @VisaNews.
1 comScore 2015 Visa Checkout Study, commissioned by Visa. Based on data from the comScore research panel of one million U.S. PC/laptop users, April-October 2015.
2 Visa Business and Economic Insights; Go.Prosper consumer survey, January 2016