Online retail Visa offers new payment method to deal with abandoned carts

Visa has launched a new payment service that simplifies the payment process for online shoppers in a bid to address the high percentage of abandoned online shopping carts caused by inconvenient payment methods.

The service, Visa Checkout, captures and saves customers’ payment details. Registered users can pay for their online shopping at several merchants that have partnered with Visa through just one payment point. Users simply enter a username and password to pay for items, instead of filling up credit card information and shipping address for every transaction. The service can be used via a smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC.

Visa Checkout is available in 16 markets worldwide, including China, Malaysia and Singapore. The company plans to extend this service to other parts of Southeast Asia in the near future.

Ooi Huey Tyng, Visa country manager for Singapore and Brunei said that as more consumers spend more time and money on ecommerce, they are also “demanding a fast, secure and frictionless way to shop online.”

“Two in three Singaporean shoppers have abandoned a purchase because it took them too much time to complete the payment process or it was too cumbersome to enter their personal details,” the company said in a press release on Wednesday.

According to a recent Visa study, Singapore is among the top online shopping countries in Southeast Asia. At 88%, the city-state has the highest smartphone penetration of any country in the world, and 71% of Singaporeans shop online at least once a month, an increase from 59% last year.