Visa, Mastercard, Discover & American Express are set to combine forces to create a new checkout button. The aim is to reduce the confusion around the multiple different checkout buttons/platforms (e.g Masterpass, Visa checkout, American Express checkout) and compete more effectively against Paypal. Visa & Mastercard announced the plan for the new checkout button last week and since then American Express & Discover have announced they will also join the effort.
Hopefully this doesn’t mean an end to the lucrative promotions that each payment network has been offering to use their checkout button. I suspect at least in the short term we will see this ramp up when the new combined button is launched to help increase the number of merchants using these buttons. Currently the break down is as follows:
- PayPal: 58%
- Apple Pay: 48%
- Visa checkout: 26%
- Masterpass: 16%
- AmEx checkout: 9%
