Amazon and PayPal’s choke hold on the one-click payment space may soon loosen. Visa has finally announced its own entry into the simplified e-commerce field with a digital wallet of its own.
The offering’s main draw its its click-to-pay system, with streamlines the online buying process by asking the consumer to enter a username and password instead of a billing address and credit card number. The system will also allow users to store information on multiple accounts, including those that have nothing to do with Visa.
With the move, Visa aims to position itself at the center of online transactions, rather than at the rear end of them.
But what about mobile payment? That’s coming too, Visa says - just not in established markets. Instead, emerging markets like India and Russia will be the initial targets of the system. These are areas with a lot of credit card and cell phone owners, but not so many people who use their credit cards on a regular basis. But combining mobile and credit, Visa hopes to boost credit card usage in these areas.
Due this fall, Visas’ digital wallet will launch first in the U.S. and Canada, who will hopefully benefit from Visa’s foreign mobile payment efforts sometime after.
