The short answer is – wallets are everywhere! Take a look at the following stats:

As the internet has expanded to reach over 4 billion people, so has the drive to find more pervasive ways for people to pay online. With such massive headline metrics, it’s no surprise that payments from mobile phones are predicted to become the second most common payment method after debit cards by 2022 (Worldpay).

Why the sudden boost in wallet usage?

  1. Wallets are popular with users. They are multi-faceted payment products that enable all goods and services to be purchased. They (usually) provide a good user experience, enabling real-time checkout, backed-up with payment receipts, good usability features (top-up in payment flow), user notifications. In the best cases, innovative wallet providers are teaming with specialist platforms like Bango to deliver offers and promotions to wallet users.
  2. Wallets are good for merchants. Increasing availability means it is becoming more worthwhile for merchants to offers wallet payments. Wallets offer lower processing costs than other methods such as carrier billed payments using airtime and even card processing in many cases. They also offer fewer limits on transaction values and frequency. In addition, they help merchants to engage with many unbanked users, and some are teaming with micro-loan providers to help users complete purchases. Crucial for new, high potential growth markets.
  3. Wallets build financial inclusion. Some wallets don’t currently offer a way to generate balance through “cash conversion”. Like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, these are literally containers, a place to store existing payment instruments, vouchers etc. But e-wallets in many countries allow users to go to a store, an ATM or kiosk, deposit cash, and generate electronic money into the wallet, which can then be used for purchase and bill settlement. In doing this, these wallets increase the number of people that can benefit from online commerce, which is a key strategic objective for Bango, and many of our global partners.

The global wallets magic formula for merchants

Bango already enables merchants to offer simple, online payments to an audience of over 3 billion people worldwide. This includes wallets, where Bango has been providing merchants with simple, unified access to wallet payments for years, for example in Africa and Asia. Bango unifies these payment methods in the same way that Visa or Mastercard unifies card processing, making it simple and scalable for merchants globally.

Why merchants adopt the Bango formula for wallets:

  1. Reach, scale and time to market – the Bango API provides an “integrate once” capability that opens-up access to wallets in over 30 countries. The merchant connects to Bango to secure massive market reach with the simplest of payment experiences. Bango ensures you can acquire and monetize more customers fast.
  2. Unified and centralized – through a cloud-based payment platform, Bango can manage payments globally for merchants. Bango analyzes wallet performance across billions of dollars of payment volume, to optimize payment success and deliver growth for our merchant partners. Merchants that rely on the Bango Platform gain operational consistency across every individual wallet they deliver. Consistent customer experience, standardized reporting and settlement, industrywide insights, standardized payment flows, and more.

Bango technology enables merchants and payment partners to innovate and differentiate fast, increasingly crucial in today’s competitive online market. Instant pre-auth allows wallets to be “immediately available” as a payment method, even to your first-time customers. This means a user can immediately use their wallet with a new merchant, without the friction of set-up and authorization. The merchant knows the wallet is available to a user, even before the user has gone through checkout.

Growth comes naturally – Bango has doubled customer revenues over six successive years through technology innovation and product differentiation. Not all wallet integrations are the same! For example, through Bango technology, Airtel uses a system of third-party rewards to incentivize customers to top-up more frequently, at an increased value.

Bango and wallet providers combine in this way to provide accessibility, performance and inclusion, with a level of payment sophistication that makes wallets a highly attractive option for merchants. If you are a merchant or wallet provider, talk to us now about joining the Bango circle to boost your business and drive greater financial access – info@bango.com