American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa have launched a joint buy button

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American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa have debuted their online checkout experience that’s based on the Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) standard developed by EMVCo. Consumers can go through a one-time account setup process while checking out, during which they provide their payment information and email, and can then use the button to make payments on all sites that feature it with minimal clicks.

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Consumers can upload multiple cards from any of the card networks and switch which one they use as they like. Payments processors and platforms like Adyen, FIS, Global Payments, and Stripe are now offering the solution to merchants, and Cinemark, Movember, and Rakuten are the first to adopt it. Additional select merchants are set to implement it before the end of 2019, and there are plans for it to become widely available in 2020.

SRC and the introduction of this buy button could boost online conversion rates by giving consumers a simple and consistent checkout option when shopping online. When online shoppers don’t have an account with a merchant, they have to input their contact, billing, and delivery information, which can be cumbersome, especially on mobile devices, and can lead to cart abandonment.

Even if they sign up for a buy button like PayPal, Masterpass, or Visa Checkout to avoid this issue, they can’t be sure every merchant accepts that button — but the click to pay offering aims to alleviate these problems.

The key to the initiative’s success will be gaining widespread adoption from both merchants and consumers, as that’s the only way it can create a consistent checkout experience online.

• To attract merchants, the card networks need to prove that SRC can boost their conversion rates and assuage any concerns about losing out on consumer data — and working with payments providers should help drive adoption. The networks are initially focusing on converting merchants that already accept Masterpass and Visa Checkout to click to pay, which may be easy given their established relationships, but SRC’s performance with its first merchants will be key to convincing other merchants. Additionally, retailers may worry that shoppers will stop signing up for customer accounts if they can use the new buy button, potentially limiting their access to consumer data, so the card networks may need to find ways to share such information with merchants. Working with payment service providers (PSPs) may prove particularly important to scaling SRC too, since doing so can give a large number of merchants access to an attractive checkout experience, Jess Turner, Mastercard EVP, product and innovation, North America, told Business Insider Intelligence.
• To win over consumers, the card networks must build a huge acceptance network and make it convenient to sign up for SRC. If the click to pay offering isn’t available nearly everywhere, the solution will just be like existing buy buttons, potentially sinking its appeal to consumers — making merchant recruitment a top priority. And consumers may not want to pause to sign up for a third-party account while checking out, so the networks should find additional channels to drive sign-ups through, like issuing banks or a dedicated website, and potentially offer small incentives to attract users

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