Frictionless payments: Your body is replacing your credit card

In years gone by, the journey between brand experiences and the retail experience was vast. You see a great new product advertised on a 6 sheet, but you need to seek out the physical store or go online and find it, then buy it. However, the digital revolution — and more recently the introduction of connected devices — has shortened this journey.

With the rise of consumer expectations, using technology to transform the isolated points of brand inspiration into seamless, captivating and secure shopping experiences is key for brands.

Many brands already have ecommerce-enabled platforms. Although, to use them still requires effort. You’re through to the payment section on your mobile device and your bankcard is in your wallet downstairs, which you need to retrieve, then tap in your 16-digit number and so on. It’s quite frustrating and slow, isn’t it? Brands are able to create good customer experiences, but innovating the last mile is a relatively recent concept.

In 2014 when Apple debuted iOS 8, Safari gave users the option to scan their bankcard to enter payment information rather than keying in the numbers. This was a step in the right direction, but it still required people to have their bankcard at the ready. Today, consumers expect an ever more seamless route to payment.

David Barclay, Vice President, Mobile Market Development at Barclays Bank echoed this point at the Mobile Marketing Summit event, The Evolving Digital World.

“Both online and in-store payments for consumers is a huge pain point” David began. “The Internet of Things and connected devices are changing the way consumers behave, and changing their expectations.”

And he’s right. The world of Brand Commerce is impacting service expectations in an enormous way. We, as consumers, expect a highly relevant and personalised service at the swipe of a screen. And brands need to keep up, or run the risk of sinking into oblivion.

David went on to explain that, “In-store is as important as online. If you scan products in-store, why should you then have to queue up and pay? This is how consumers are starting to think.”

Forward thinking brands, however, are beginning to react to these consumer demands and realising that the last mile is at the crux of a seamless experience.

Domino’s Pizza’s AnyWare suite of mobile ordering technology is committed to developing software to enable customers to order and pay for food through multiple devices, from smart televisions to smart watches. No longer do you have to pause Netflix, get up off of your sofa, and phone your local Domino’s to order a margherita.

But, David Barclay warned, “Bankcards have been around for sixty years because they work. New payment experiences must be as flawless and secure, as well as ubiquitous.” And this resonated when the stat appeared, ‘out of all of the people who have used Apple Pay, only half have returned’.

With the first contactless card transaction occurring almost ten years ago in the UK, the experience of Apple Pay isn’t good enough, or different enough, to drive behaviour change at scale. So, how can brands create new, flawless payment methods at scale? The answer is to use existing technologies, coupled with our natural behaviours, in new ways.

Take Chinese ecommerce giant, Alibaba, for example, who launched ‘pay-by-selfie’ in 2015. Selfies have existed for as long as the front-facing camera, so Alibaba utilised this normalised behaviour to offer its users a seamless payment experience.

Similarly, the new home product from Amazon, Amazon Echo, enables users to pay off their credit card bills, as well as ordering services like Über and Just Eat, by simply using voice commands.

Again, tapping into regular human behaviour, Isobar Nowlab created a smart mirror to be placed in retail clothing stores to help customers choose what to purchase based on what they’re already wearing, and removes the pain point of queuing. The mirror scans what you’re wearing in-store then recommends products suitable for you. These items are then delivered to your fitting room for you to try on. Then, when you’re happy with the outfit, you can pay at the mirror — using facial recognition linking to your bankcard.

These new transaction innovations remove the need for a third party object to complete a purchase. As Humans, our facial features, sound of our voices and fingerprints are unique to us. They differentiate each and every person on the planet. This is enough to authenticate a payment, without the need to scan a phone or a piece of plastic.

As Brand Commerce is still in its infancy, a major hurdle for brands continues to be connecting a seamless payment process to the overall experience at scale. We have been carrying around pieces of plastic in our pockets since the 1950’s, after all.

Andrew Luckie, Content Manager, Isobar Global