Revolut takes on payment titans with one-click checkout solution

The news: UK-based neobank Revolut introduced a one-click checkout solution dubbed Revolut Pay and has already signed on Shopify and other companies, per Bloomberg.

Here’s how it works: Revolut customers can check out in one click on any site where Revolut Pay is available. Non-Revolut customers can do the same once they save their card details to Revolut Pay. All customers can earn cash back on purchases.

Revolut will charge businesses a roughly 1% fee for the service, and it will pay them within 24 hours, which Revolut claims is faster than other checkout providers.

Why it’s worth watching: The rise of ecommerce and growing demand for convenience opened a pathway for one-click checkout to take off.

Here’s why the payment method is gaining steam on both sides of the purchasing chain:

• One-click checkout gives customers a more seamless buying experience. The payment method lets customers avoid inputting their personal information, saving them time and effort during checkout. Eighty-seven percent of US adults agreed that convenience was important for the customer experience, per a 2022 survey conducted by customer experience expert Shep Hyken.
• That translates to higher conversion rates for merchants. One-click checkout helps merchants bolster sales by removing many of the friction points that result in cart abandonment. This may be why 40% of retailers highly value one-click checkout, according to Retail Systems Research.

These factors likely influenced Revolut’s push into one-click checkout—the neobank’s second major push into retail payments tech in the last few weeks. It launched a card reader in July.

The problem: Revolut is entering a highly competitive market. It’ll need to offer comparable benefits to other one-click checkout providers to encourage use and keep merchants on board.

PayPal helped popularize one-click checkout and has a loyal base of online users. They select PayPal Checkout 50% of the time that it's available—and PayPal believes it can improve on that. Revolut Pay’s cash-back perks are similar to PayPal’s checkout rewards system, which may be a factor that can help it compete with the payments titan.

Amazon’s Buy with Prime launched in April. While Buy with Prime isn’t exactly one-click checkout, it still reflects a strong push into payments. The purchasing feature uses Amazon’s popular Prime program to appeal to online shoppers, which could undermine Revolut Pay. But some retailers may prefer to use Revolut Pay over a payment solution from a big competitor like Amazon.

The one-click checkout space is a survival of the fittest: Former one-click checkout provider Fast shuttered in April as a result of poor performance and revenues.

The big takeaway: Revolut Pay offers notable perks to both consumers and merchants that can help it stand out despite strong competition. The product can help the neobank diversify its revenues and build a stronger presence in the payments sector—which seems to be a space it’s aggressively pursuing.

This article originally appeared in Insider Intelligence's Payments Innovation Briefing—a daily recap of top stories reshaping the payments industry. Subscribe to have more hard-hitting takeaways delivered to your inbox daily.

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