Synchrony Financial has made a strategic investment in the startup Skipify to accelerate development of an instant online checkout service the lender plans to roll out next year to thousands of its merchant clients.
The artificial intelligence-powered service automatically recognizes returning customers and prefills forms with payment and loyalty program details. Synchrony declined to specify the size of its investment.
The collaboration aligns with the rise of streamlined online checkout approaches such as Amazon Pay, EMVCo’s Secure Remote Commerce and Standard’s autonomous checkout systems for physical stores, with a few key differences.
Synchrony, of Stamford, Connecticut, issues cobranded and private-label credit cards for thousands of U.S. merchants, including Lowe’s, T.J. Maxx and La-Z-Boy. San Francisco-based Skipify will pull in customer details from Synchrony-issued cards covering 60 million U.S. consumers to personalize transactions, the bank said in its announcement Wednesday.
Skipify’s technology also works across channels to directly enable purchases from links in emails, text messages, social media, advertisements and third-party websites.
“Everyone’s working to improve speed and reduce friction in online checkout, but our goal with Skipify is to develop a more complete solution with rich data that can support seamless checkouts anywhere,” Jeff Lamour, senior vice president of Synchrony Ventures, said in an interview.
Each merchant will need to integrate separately with Skipify’s technology, Lamour said. To trigger Synchrony’s instant checkout option, the customer must also have an existing credit card relationship with Synchrony.
Customers enter their email address or mobile phone number when they are ready to pay, prompting a pop-up notification to appear announcing the availability of instant checkout. Users will also have the option at that point to access loyalty points or make any modifications to the order or shipping details, the companies explained.
“Shoppers won’t need to get their credit card out, because account details and other information will be automatically embedded,” said Ryth Martin, Skipify’s co-founder and CEO.
Skipify, founded in 2018, has been
“We’re well into the second inning in the development of instant checkout, and the next phase will be providing a tighter, more customized connection between the merchant and customer incorporating more useful information about a customer’s past purchases, interests and rewards,” Martin said.
Synchrony’s investment in Skipify doesn’t preclude the startup from working with other partners.
“Our investment strategy is to be a primary partner at the early stages to companies that tie back to our core business areas of financial services, e-commerce and health care,” Lamour said.
