Checkout is a critical part of the e-commerce experience, and PayPal aims to reduce friction for UK and European merchants with its Fastlane service.
Fastlane was initially announced for U.S. merchants last January and expanded more broadly in August. Its rollout in the UK and EU will be facilitated by JPMorgan Payments (JPM), which will introduce the offering to its substantial merchant network.
PayPal highlighted that 70% of consumers consider checkout a crucial part of the shopping experience, yet cart abandonment remains high. The payments giant asserts that FastLane addresses this challenge by accelerating checkout speeds by over 36% compared to traditional guest checkout.
“This is a good partnership—PayPal needs the broader distribution that JPM can bring in the UK and EU, and the FastLane product gives JPM great tech to offer e-commerce merchants that reduces friction in guest checkouts,” said Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research.
“If you’re not familiar with FastLane, it works similar to Shopify’s ShopPay,” he said. “If you are shopping online and elect for guest checkout (you don’t have to have or want an account with the merchant), FastLane recognizes you as a PayPal consumer as soon as you enter your email address. FastLane then sends a code to the consumer’s mobile on file with PayPal to authenticate the customer and prepopulates their shipping and payment info.”
Friction Reduction
PayPal’s one-click option was rolled out last year alongside a host of other artificial intelligence initiatives, including a smart receipts program and an AI platform designed to help merchants leverage customer data for personalized recommendations.
While many of these AI initiatives received a tepid response initially, FastLane appears to have gained traction on a wider scale.
Beyond AI, merchants continue to explore biometric authentication technology in the checkout experience. Early applications of biometric verification primarily focused on in-store transactions, such as Amazon’s pay-by-palm initiative at its Whole Foods stores.
However, biometric payments may offer even greater potential in e-commerce checkouts.
“The real need for identity verification is with card-not-present transactions, and it would be great to see facial recognition technology deployed in conjunction with technology like 3D Secure 2.0, where biometrics can work to reduce both fraud and friction in ecommerce transactions,” Apgar told PaymentsJournal.
