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A new service that integrates Apple Inc.’s Touch ID and Samsung’s fingerprint-recognition technology into a single mobile-payments app says it can help boost conversion, and ease shopping-cart abandonment, for mobile-commerce retailers.
Santa Ana, Calif.-based Sekur Me Inc. uses the biometric sensors in Apple and Samsung smart phones to authenticate the user. The integration does not tap into the iPhone’s native Apple Pay service, says Jack Bicer, chief executive. In addition to contactless payments, Apple Pay users also can use that service to pay for items purchased via compatible mobile apps. Apple Pay is not available for Web browsers, whether mobile or not.
The expectation is that merchants will add a bit of code to their desktop and mobile Web sites that displays an Express Checkout with Sekur.me button, says Bicer.
To make a payment using the service, consumers enroll in the iOS or Android app by supplying their name, email, and shipping and billing address. To connect a card to their Sekur Me account, consumers use the app, which accesses the phone’s camera, to capture the card data, which also can be typed in. Bicer says no image of the card is stored. Currently, only Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. cards can be stored in the wallet.
On a site, such as PersimmonTea.com, the consumer clicks, or taps, the Sekur Me express-checkout button. A Quick Response code appears that the consumer scans with the Sekur Me app to complete the transaction. Bicer expects to have “hundreds” of merchants offering the service later this year.
On a mobile Web site, the consumer taps the express-checkout button triggering the authentication screen from the app. The biometric is entered and the purchase made.
Each time the consumer opens the app, he must authenticate his identity either via the biometric or a PIN, Bicer says. The payment is then completed using the merchant’s existing payment processor and the credit or debit card stored in the wallet.
Sekur Me eliminates typing payment and shipping information on small smart-phone screens, Bicer says. That should help improve conversion rates, which Bicer says typically are about 3% on mobile-commerce sites. That measures the percentage of site users who actually make a purchase.
“We’re moving to a mobile browser-centric shopping environment,” Bicer tells Digital Transactions News. “The millennial generation, especially with tablets, doesn’t even have a computer any more.”
The Sekur Me app essentially turns the smart phone into a digital identity, Bicer says. It combines data about hardware elements inside the phone with consumer data to create that identity, he says. The identity, which Sekur Me calls “FonePrint,” can’t be replicated, Bicer says. “This is good enough to be deployed at high-end security places, which we do.”
Sekur Me makes money by charging a small fee either on a per-transaction basis or as a percentage of overall sales, Bicer says. The app can be rebranded.
