Mastercard: It Takes a Village to Improve the Online Checkout Experience

Checkout is the last mile in commerce, representing the critical moments of decision-making that can make or break a sale — and by extension, merchants’ fortunes.

Joint research from PYMNTS Intelligence and Mastercard in the “ Online Merchant Checkout Innovation Report ” found that more companies encounter trouble with their checkout processes than with payments processing. It’s a global issue, illustrated in the pain points experienced by merchants in the United States and four other markets surveyed by PYMNTS Intelligence, including Australia, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Six in 10 middle-market firms said they struggled with the user experience during checkout online.

Mastercard’s Jennifer Macrae , senior vice president of global digital channel enablement, and Sukhmani Dev , senior vice president of North America digital product management, said the problem is acute enough that more than three-quarters of merchants are looking for ways to streamline checkout to boost sales conversions.

“The user experience is critical … friction is directly correlated with loss of sales’ conversion rates and therefore the merchants’ bottom lines,” Macrae said.

More than ever, there are various high-tech tools and solutions, including artificial intelligence and biometrics, to help modernize checkout.

However, as Macrae and Dev told PYMNTS, it takes a village. Mastercard is working with issuing partners and other stakeholders to eliminate passwords, beef up security and keep checkout simple when consumers decide to complete a purchase.

A Collaborative Effort

“Collaboration is the key word,” said Dev, who added that “we’ve been able to bring an ecosystem together to make mobile wallets and tap to pay more secure.”

Consumers using a Mastercard product in a mobile wallet are using network tokens that improve authorization rates and push fraud rates lower. Tokenization allows merchants to replace sensitive card-related information with a unique identifier, which also improves payment processing, Dev said. In the U.S. alone, 1 in 3 eCommerce transactions already use the technology, and approval rates see a 3 to 6 percentage point increase, along with several points of fraud reduction.

“In fact, globally, this technology is responsible for delivering $2 billion in incremental sales for merchants each month,” said Dev, adding that “the scale is important, and the value is tremendous.”

More recently, the company introduced its checkout services platform for merchants. The platform is built on the EMV SRC standard, enabling merchants to implement one-click checkout solutions including Click to Pay and Secure Card on File solutions.

“It’s all about driving value through choice and transparency,” said Macrae, adding that the same principles that have improved in-store commerce (through tap to pay) have driven the move to create a standard click-through experience online, which means that consumers no longer must struggle to input their card details online.

Macrae and Dev said Click to Pay is reducing friction at checkout so significantly that checkout times are cut in half when measured against entering card-specific details manually. The feature is available in over 50 countries and integrated with more than 95 channel partners.

“The time’s been right to declare our ambition of creating a future where physical card numbers that are needed for purchases are a thing of the past, and one-time passcodes become obsolete” with the embrace of passkeys and biometrics, Macrae said. “We’re aiming to make sure that every transaction is tokenized and authenticated.”

Added Dev: “Partnership and collaboration are key, and Mastercard is locking hands with our issuing partners, digital partners and one-click solutions providers to help capitalize on the momentum.”