Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
U.S. merchants processing with Vantiv Inc. that want to court international e-commerce customers now can offer these shoppers alternative payment methods unique to their locations. Vantiv announced on Tuesday it is working with PPRO Group, a London-based payments provider, to enable non-card payment methods, such as direct debit, bank transfers, cash-based electronic payments, and e-wallets.
A major factor in offering this service is that most international shoppers opt to use their preferred local payment method, Neeraj Gupta, Vantiv leader of product management, says in an email to Digital Transactions News. Shopping-cart abandonment often increases when local payment options are not available, he says.
“In many cases, the preferred method is not a credit/debit card and merchants not offering relevant options are leaving money on the table,” Gupta says. “Our partnership with PPRO will power Vantiv’s support of these high-share/growth payment types.”
Merchants must make a couple of changes to accommodate these consumers. First, they must provide localized Web and checkout pages so the alternative payment methods can be properly presented, which includes redirecting customers to the appropriate log-in page for the payment type, Gupta says. Second, additional data points about the transaction must be configured to send to Vantiv.
Merchant pricing will vary based on the payment option used by the shopper, Gupta says. “For instance, both SEPA Direct Debit and iDEAL (Netherlands banks transfer) are nearly always priced at a fixed fee per transaction, whereas SOFORT and Giropay (German bank transfers) are priced with fixed-fee and variable-percent components,” Gupta says. “Alipay, meanwhile, is strictly a percentage of ticket. We plan to conform to all to make apples-to-apples comparison simpler.” Alipay is a popular China-based payment method that was started by Alibaba Group, an e-commerce site serving Asia.
Catering to international customers is important for U.S. merchants because growth in online international consumer spending is expected to outpace growth among North American consumers over the next five years, Gupta says.
“Merchant of all sizes selling online know this and those not already marketing overseas are considering or planning to go global,” he says. “Thus, when they look at payments, they’re increasingly looking for a single processor to accept payments from both their domestic and international buyers.”
Credit and debit card acceptance from international consumers remains essential for merchants. Gupta says earlier this year Vantiv’s system was updated to accept these transactions in local currencies within 35 European nations.
