Visa Checkout sets forth swiping feature for swift mobile commerce

The new interactive button brings an engaging new way to pay with Visa Checkout and is particularly convenient for mobile devices with smaller screens.

Visa first introduced the Visa Checkout lightbox in 2014, allowing consumers to pay online, on any device, without being redirected from the merchant’s site or app. Now, instead of a lightbox, a consumer sees a picture of his/her card on the Visa Checkout button, swipes it to the right, and then enters the password inside the button itself to authenticate.

The feature 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 aims to extend the functionality to Visa Checkout merchants who ship goods in the coming months.

According to the company, 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. For instance, Visa Checkout participants visiting Pizza Hut were roughly twice as likely to pay with the Visa Checkout 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.

The feature comes in the light of a recent Visa consumer survey that found that more than two-thirds (67 %) of millennial respondents, ages 18 to 34, reported making a purchase using their smartphone or tablet. Roughly 45 % of millennials surveyed said they made an online purchase at least a few times a month, compared to about 40 % of older respondents.

Visa Checkout now has more than 11 million consumer accounts and hundreds of thousands of large and small merchants and 600 financial institution partners (according to their own data). Visa Checkout is present in 16 countries around the world and expansion to five European countries and India is to take place by the end of 2016.

Merchants using Visa Checkout include Best Buy, Fandango, Gap, Neiman Marcus, Pizza Hut, Staples, Rakuten, Under Armour, Virgin America, Williams-Sonoma and zulily.