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Payments startup Payzing Inc. is banking that a digital-currency integration with Uphold, a virtual funds and commodity platform, will lead to e-commerce success.
San Francisco-based Payzing uses Uphold’s blockchain technology to offer online merchants an alternate payment method to traditional credit and debit cards. Consumers use their Uphold accounts to purchase products. Uphold enables consumers to hold and send money for free based on funds held in an Uphold account, which can be funded via a bank transfer, credit or debit card, or Bitcoin. A consumer needs only an email and a mobile device to open an Uphold account.
Merchants using Payzing pay 0.25% per transaction, and because the purchases are immediately funded by balances kept in consumer Uphold accounts, there are no chargebacks or associated fees, Josh Kliot, Payzing founder, tells Digital Transactions News. In comparison, the discount rate for an online credit card transaction might be 2%.
Dubbed Uphold Payments by Payzing, the service also enables near-instant settlement instead of 24 to 48 hours, Kliot says. Consumers pay by choosing the Uphold Payments by Payzing option upon checkout.
Payzing currently is available to merchants using Shopify Inc. for their e-commerce sites and will soon be available on e-commerce site builders Wix.com Inc. and Squarespace Inc., with additional integrations planned, Kliot says.
In addition to low payment-processing fees, Kliot says Payzing also can be useful to merchants courting international consumers. These shoppers, especially in countries where the native currency may be weak, still want to purchase from U.S. retailers. They can load value into their Uphold accounts and make purchases using these funds, Kliot says. Uphold charges no currency-conversion fees.
In addition to e-commerce, Uphold recently announced a deal with BookingTeam.com, an online booking service for vacation rentals. Uphold also released an iOS app in April.
