NEW YORK – With sponsorship from Citigroup Inc., Billing Revolution Inc. is trying to help convert people who window-shop on their mobile phones into paying customers.
In December, the Seattle vendor plans to roll out a service that will let consumers make purchases with a mobile phone without having to enter their payment card details for every purchase. That step causes many mobile shoppers to abandon transactions they’ve started.
By simplifying the checkout process, Billing Revolution could encourage more of these consumers to complete purchases, according to American Banker, an affiliate of Credit Union Journal. And by tying the service to card accounts that a consumer registers with the service, it provides a way for banks to capture more transaction volume, much in the same way Apple Inc. has with its strategy of routing payments through its iTunes store. Simply put, the card linked to Billing Revolution has the edge over the others in the shopper’s wallet, the Banker reported.
“It brings … [banks] into the check-in process rather than relegating [them] to the checkout process,” said Richard Crone, the chief executive Crone Consulting LLC in San Carlos, Calif.
Billing Revolution, founded in 2007, has caught the attention of Citi, which is providing marketing dollars to sponsor the vendor’s Single-Click Checkout service. The service could interest other banks looking to keep their payments cards top of wallet when consumers are shopping, Crone said.
Mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $27.3 billion by 2015, up from $1.4 billion in 2009, Aite Group LLC said in a report released last week. Single-Click Checkout is expected to be available for consumer use on Google Inc.’s Android mobile operating system in early December. It would allow a customer to purchase goods and services within a merchant’s mobile application without having to key in their card number and other payment information.
