Visa Expands Checkout Availability; Says User Base Climbs to More Than 3 Million

Visa Inc. on Thursday said it is expanding the availability of its Visa Checkout online and mobile wallet to 13 more nations beyond the three original ones.

Starting today, consumers in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and China can use Visa Checkout to pay for purchases on e-commerce sites in the United States, Canada, or Australia. Visa relaunched Visa Checkout last year and made it available in the latter three nations. Later this year, Visa Checkout will be expanded to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, Sam Shrauger, Visa senior vice president of digital solutions, tells Digital Transactions News.

Shrauger says consumers in this group of nations tend to do a lot of cross-border shopping. Eventually, consumers will be able to use Visa Checkout within their own countries to shop on local e-commerce sites, he says.

Consumers use Visa Checkout to pay with credit or debit cards stored in Checkout’s online wallet. When ready to pay, the consumer enters her Visa Checkout user name and password, bypassing the lengthy steps of entering detail payment information. Visa launched its first online wallet, dubbed V.me, in 2012.

Since its relaunch, Visa Checkout has expanded its user base to more than 3 million. Visa did not say how many used the service prior to relaunch. Shrauger says between August and December the number of Visa Checkout users grew by 30% on a compounded monthly rate.

While an impressive number, that total is small in comparison to PayPal Inc.’s 162 million active accounts. Shrauger, who joined Visa in 2013 after leaving PayPal, says Visa Checkout stands apart from PayPal in that it gives consumers online- and mobile-optimized versions of their existing payment cards. “Consumers know their cards, they know how they work, and which ones they want to use for a particular purchase,” Shrauger says.