An industry colleague was bemoaning the rise of what he felt was meaningless jargon in the payments industry, and he cited the example of describing integrated payments as “embedded payments.” While I also disdain useless jargon, I felt obligated to point out that “embedded” does not mean the same thing as “integrated.”
If you think about how we shop for good and services, first we decide what product(s) we are going to buy, and then we decide how to pay for it. When payments are “integrated,” it means that shoppers can move seamlessly from the buying process to the payments process. When payments are “embedded,” there is no separate process: the payment happens invisibly as part of the buying process.
Embedded payments are not just for online “one-click” purchases; merchants across all vertical segments are re-examining their checkout processes to look for ways to make it easier for their shoppers. Grocery is one segment where merchants are looking for new ways to better meet their customers where they are.
“For grocery leaders, payments are a key component of the customer experience,” says Derek Tanis, SVP, Consumer Partnerships at Netspend. “The transaction, however, must be threaded into that experience so that consumers don’t have to think twice about the payment itself.”
Overview by Don Apgar, Director, Merchant Services Advisory Practice at Mercator Advisory Group
