The digital-first explosion has ushered in the next generation of commerce, and the need for an online checkout experience that is seamless and consistent across all types of channels.

Click to Pay is based on the EMV® Secure Remote Commerce industry standard. Following a successful initial rollout in the United States, Visa is now transitioning Visa Checkout merchants in Canada to this fast, easy and secure way to pay for consumers who choose to shop via web, mobile, app or connected device.

With online shopping more than doubling year over year[1] in Canada as of this past May due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Click to Pay experience launches at a crucial time as businesses and consumers embrace a rapid shift towards eCommerce. Click to Pay with Visa enables shoppers to speed through the guest checkout process by eliminating the need to manually key-in personal account numbers and passwords each time they checkout. More than half (56%) of Canadian consumers have abandoned an online shopping cart because of these manual processes, resulting in lost sales for businesses.

“With the increasingly high numbers of online shoppers in the wake of COVID-19, we are committed to providing solutions that lay the groundwork for the next generation of simple, secure, and better ways to pay,” said Stacey Madge, president and country manager, Visa Canada. “This is a winning solution that will help merchants reduce shopping cart abandonment while providing a single integration for participating card brands - meaning a simpler and smoother overall digital checkout experience.”

On websites displaying the Click to Pay button, consumers that have enabled their card will be able to speed through the guest checkout process, bypassing the need to manually enter their 16-digit personal account number or look up passwords each time they checkout. Consumers will also be able to pay with confidence knowing Visa will be using advanced technology and authentication methods, including device binding and biometrics to protect transactions. The Click to Pay experience is also interoperable with the EMVCo tokenization specification and with the 3-D Secure specification to bring more security methods to emerging and existing digital payments channels.

“As a Canadian leader in digital payments, Moneris is very excited to help Visa bring the Click to Pay experience to Canadian businesses in 2021,” said Malcolm Fowler, Chief Strategic Partnership Officer, Moneris. “Click to Pay brings value to our merchants and to consumers through simple, efficient and secure transactions.”

Visa Reaches 1 Billion Tokens
The Click to Pay experience helps facilitate guest checkout purchases for shoppers who do not have their Visa saved with an online merchant. On the flip side, a large percentage of digital purchases are made using a stored Visa credential, usually with merchants that have high frequency use or recurring monthly payments. To protect these types of digital transactions, Visa offers tokenization to replace a cardholder’s 16-digit Visa account number with a secure token that protects the underlying card number from fraudsters. Visa Token Service (VTS) recently issued its 1 billionth token, marking a major milestone in its proprietary offering to help accelerate eCommerce innovation and make payments more secure. Today, there are over 13,000 merchants transacting with Visa credential-on-file COF tokens[3] and over 8,200 issuers enabled on Visa Token Service from 150 markets.

Like Click to Pay, the rapid adoption of Visa’s tokenization technology comes as the world’s massive shift to digital takes over modern and future forms of commerce. Looking ahead, Visa is already launching new and evolved solutions to reduce operational risks around data protection for merchants and mobile carriers, reducing unnecessary steps and friction for consumers.