Card issuers are accustomed to a world in which consumers choose which card to use at the moment they make a purchase. But in the Amazon Go model that more retailers want to emulate, that choice is made long before the shopper enters the store.
To equip itself for this new world, Visa on Wednesday morning announced a deal to buy Payworks, a Munich-based payment gateway software company. Payworks’ cloud supports omnichannel payments for restaurants, retail and transportation, and Visa plans to combine Payworks with its CyberSource e-commerce and mobile payment unit to build a single integration to support face-to-face and digital transactions.
The goal is to blend digital and physical sales into a single platform. For example, Amazon Go operates by allowing consumers to use the payment card they already registered online at Amazon.com when they visit its stores. As more retailers blur the lines between their channels, they'll need a payment system that can keep up.
Visa was already an investor in Payworks, participating in a $14.5 million Series B funding round in 2018 that Payworks used to develop point of sale, incentive market and CRM systems. Visa did not disclose the price of the Payworks acquisition, and did not return a request for comment by deadline.
The card brand has made several moves to add scale in digital retail and payments. Payworks is the second acquisition for Visa in just a few weeks, as the card brand in late June announced plans to buy
That followed Visa’s $320 million acquisition of
In this context, the Payworks deal is a different prong of the same strategy applied to multi-channel shopping and purchasing. As retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart play across channels, consumers and other businesses are becoming accustomed to marketing, selling and accepting payments in different venues, often simultaneously.
That trend has led to numerous
The activity accelerated this spring through a series of megadeals, such as
These transactions are designed to bridge issuer and merchant acquiring services through a single relationship, but there is also an omnichannel component. TSYS had earlier acquired
A fully integrated payment acceptance solution is quickly becoming table stakes for merchants, said Thad Peterson, a senior analyst at Aite Group.
"Omni-channel commerce is completely dependent upon having a 360 degree view of a customer’s shopping journey and that’s simply not possible in payments with different processing platforms for physical and digital," Peterson said. "Add the need to process alternative payments and cross-border at any touch point and there’s really no way that a siloed solution can deliver, much less compete for merchant business."
By adding Payworks, Visa can cover more real estate in omnichannel, adding to other technologies such as Visa's
"Visa's Cybersource is already a strong player in e-commerce acceptance, and integration with Payworks will help it develop an omnichannel proposition," said Zil Bareisis, a senior analyst at Celent.
Payworks also brings its own partnerships to Visa. Payworks' cloud structure has attracted high-profile partners who, like Visa, were looking to expand services quickly to respond to competitive pressure.
For example, Payworks has partnered with
A Payworks collaboration with merchant software company
It also was part of a broader strategy at
