The acceleration of the global digital economy can’t be ignored. By next year, ecommerce will account for 29% of global retail chains and 53% of growth1 – but merchants and acquirers are still trying to close the gap between convenience and security.
Ever since Click to Pay was introduced in late 2019, consumer demand has risen for safe, seamless, and convenient digital payment options. Now, with 79% of shoppers ordering via mobile devices2, consumers expect a simple, consistent checkout process that both protects their financial data and doesn’t have them searching in their pocketbook for their debit and credit cards. While introducing Click to Pay was a start, its first iteration was only the beginning.
Simplifying guest checkouts: finding balance on security and convenience
Since the onset of the pandemic, consumers turn more often to ecommerce as a safe way to shop. Our online shopping trends have morphed from the occasional purchase to a way of paying on a daily basis. Faced with the need to buy more and more often from websites with which they are unfamiliar, consumers need a solution that balances both security and convenience.
As more consumers look to the speed and convenience of digital payments to fuel their purchases, guest checkout remains the standard way to pay. A 2019 study showed that 54% of online shoppers3 abandoned their carts due to long checkouts or because they didn’t want to create an account with the merchant. They also may hesitate to create merchant accounts because they only make occasional, infrequent purchases.
Additionally, as consumers focus more on controlling their data security, they are weighing the benefits of storing their data online with potentially having it compromised by unfamiliar merchants. Despite the payment industry’s best efforts, 57% of shoppers still doubt their information is secure on ecommerce sites4.
So, in search of balance, consumers will initiate the extra steps for a guest checkout but, when it comes to the actual checkout process, they will abandon their shopping carts if the overall checkout experience is complicated or if it takes longer than 2 minutes and 29 seconds5 on average.
The answer was simple: create a frictionless guest checkout that removes manual card entry and could be used consistently across card schemes to streamline for retailers worldwide. While the need was clear and the answer straightforward, the initial Click to Pay solution was built on industry standards and provided a flexible platform for innovation to address pain points faced by consumers, merchants and financial institutions.
Click to Pay adoption
When Click to Pay was introduced by Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Discover in 2019, the goal was to provide a simple, secure, and consistent way for consumers to check out across multiple sites and countries, without relying on passwords. Merchant and consumer adoption of Click to Pay has been successful worldwide. In the two years since the release, Click to Pay has been launched in 11 markets and accepted by major global retailers worldwide.
Even as Click to Pay adoption continues to grow across the globe, consumer behaviour still demands setting the bar high for new, innovative technology to power online checkouts, reduce clicks to purchase, and build towards an even faster, easier, and seamless checkout experience.
The next evolution for Click to Pay
The Click to Pay evolution is far from over. In September 2021, Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS) launched, in connection with Expo 2020 Dubai, the world’s first embedded Click to Pay experience. This new user experience makes it easy for consumers to check out using intelligent consumer recognition embedded into the website’s guest checkout flow.
Now, instead of an additional click, consumers can access their previously saved cards directly on the merchant’s checkout. With MPGS’s new Click to Pay solution, consumers can simply start the checkout process, and an intelligent consumer recognition will match them via a cookie or email address with cards stored in their profile. This is revolutionary for the consumer. Instead of focusing on growing awareness, adoption, and preference globally among consumers, MPGS’s Click to Pay solution can present them with a faster, seamless checkout experience.
With merchants, MPGS’s intentions have always been clear. MPGS sees the full potential of Click to Pay being unlocked when the experience is more directly incorporated into the merchant’s existing checkout and believes this is the leaping point into the future of smart digital payments. Merchants know they are offering their customers a safe, simple, and secure payment option from a recognisable global brand that’s supported by card issuers globally.
Click to Pay brings us a step closer to our goal of securing commerce with tokenization and intelligent authentication. Our flexible platform can tokenize payments for merchants to further boost conversions, lower fraud rates, and deliver a reduction in false declines.
We are excited for the next chapter in the Click to Pay evolution. The journey to advancing beyond consumer expectations and building innovative financial tech solutions is one we should all be aiming for as our North Star.
This editorial was first published in our Cross-Border Payments and Ecommerce Report 2021–2022, which taps into the fast-growing cross-border market and provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments that are pivotal in this space, being the ultimate source of information for ecommerce businesses interested in expanding globally.
About Ryan Beaudry
Ryan Beaudry is responsible for Mastercard Payment Gateway Services in North America. In this role, Ryan defines the strategy for next generation commerce and delivering on the company’s customer-centric focus to enable solutions with acceptance partners, acquirers, and merchants. Ryan has been with Mastercard for +10 years managing product initiatives across global product strategy, person-to-person payments, and healthcare.
About Mastercard Payment Gateway Services
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