Walmart's Flipkart unveils new payment solution for frictionless shopping

The e-commerce company has unveiled Visa Safe Click (VSC), powered by Visa, which eliminates the need for OTP and points of friction, such as cart abandonment, connectivity and incorrect passwords

Walmart-owned e-commerce firm Flipkart on Monday announced the launch of Visa Safe Click (VSC), powered by Visa, the payments technology giant. VSC, a new payment solution now available on Flipkart platform, will enable the e-commerce platform to deploy India’s first in-app device-based network authentication solution. This solution will eliminate the need for ‘one time passwords’ (OTP) for transactions up to Rs. 2,000, while also ensuring a completely secure payment experience. Flipkart said it hopes to reduce the steps in the payment system. The aim is to help consumers complete their purchase journey with ease, primarily in regions where internet connectivity and e-literacy are scarce.

With this, Flipkart will offer consumers the benefits of faster checkout time, leading to more shopping carts getting fulfilled with ease. The company said that, at a time when e-commerce is witnessing an ever-growing demand, leading to higher and larger transaction volumes, VSC’s built-in network authentication capabilities will reduce the chances of transaction failures.

"OTP-based authentication is one of the biggest points of friction in online card transactions, wherein we have observed significant customer drop-offs. At Flipkart, it is our constant endeavour to simplify and quicken the shopping experience for customers on our platform, to increase their comfort and convenience,” said Ranjith Boyanapalli, head - fintech and payments group at Flipkart. “VSC is the outcome of one such effort and completely replaces OTP with a background authentication, removing the need for any additional customer action. Through this initiative, we hope more consumers can make small-ticket purchases more easily and complete their purchase journey in a click.”

While this feature aims at aiding consumers in their small-ticket purchases of up to Rs. 2000, Flipkart said it has several other initiatives and options to facilitate larger expenses. The company said it has massively ramped up the distribution reach of its offerings to enable credit access and affordability options for shoppers across the country. Significantly scaled constructs like ‘Flipkart pay later’ and ‘cardless credit,’ were introduced to help new-to-credit customers have a shopping experience that is seamless and affordable, with the larger goal to onboard the next 200 million customers.

“As the Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years, digital payment success is likely to be a crucial driving factor behind the adoption of online shopping. Visa's team of developers in India designed VSC to boost the customer experience and tackle unique challenges in the Indian e-commerce market,” said T.R. Ramachandran, group country manager, Visa India and South Asia. “ It eliminates points of friction, such as cart abandonment, connectivity and incorrect passwords, and transforms the payment experience into a faster, secure and seamless one, allowing consumers to focus on their shopping while helping e-commerce merchants improve their payment success rates.”

Analysts said that e-commerce companies are facing huge losses in their pursuit to dominate the country’s growing online commerce market which is expected to touch $200 billion by 2028, from about $30 billion in 2018.