Mastercard and PayU launch first Click to Pay embedded payments experience in South Africa

• Launch of global Click to Pay embedded payments experience solidifies Mastercard’s partnership with PayU, along with their merchants.
• PayU, a leading Payment Service Provider in South Africa, is the first to launch this payment method in the country.

27 June 2023, South Africa: Mastercard, in partnership with PayU, today announces the launch of Click to Pay in South Africa. Click to Pay is the next generation of eCommerce technology, that enables consumers to make payments without entering their card credentials or storing sensitive information across different merchants’ platforms. This makes it convenient, seamless, and safe for consumers to check out across various Click to Pay-enabled sites.

Click to Pay also allows merchants to improve their approval rates by using sophisticated tokenization technology and increase conversion rates due to the embedded user experience. The launch of Click to Pay is the latest initiative demonstrating Mastercard’s commitment to growing the ecosystem through various digital payment options, offering increased security and peace of mind for everyone, everywhere.

“As a leading Payment Service Provider in South Africa, PayU Click to Pay is gaining momentum across the landscape, and our strategy supports a best-in-class experience. Our partnership with Mastercard, together with other merchants and partners, will continue supporting our vision of creating an inclusive world without financial borders where everyone can prosper,” says Karen Nadasen, CEO, PayU Africa.  “Click to Pay is an open standard from EMV Secure Remote Commerce standard for eCommerce / Card Not Present guest checkout transactions, and delivers a more consistent and convenient checkout experience for consumers, reducing the multiple steps they face at different sites today.”

Consumers using Click to Pay for the first time will experience a secure and convenient user journey and can enroll their cards on the pop-up window on the PayU platform. Those who already stored their cards in their profile will have a seamless checkout experience on the eCommerce platforms of merchants already supporting this technology. These consumers will see their cards appear for selection, as opposed to being hidden away behind a button, pop-up, or redirect process as with competing solutions.

Click to Pay offers consumers advanced payment technology built on industry standards and intelligent security from Mastercard, bringing it a step closer to reaching its goal of securing all commerce with tokenization and intelligent authentication.

“According to Mastercard research on global eCommerce trends, online shopping sales are estimated to surpass R400 billion by 2026 in South Africa alone. Through continued partnerships and innovations, we remain committed to our customers such as Payment Service Providers, merchants, acquirers, and financial institutions - to drive the future of payments,” says Gabriel Swanepoel, Country Manager at Mastercard for Southern Africa. “Click to Pay has already launched in five markets – UAE, KSA, Qatar, Kuwait, and now South Africa, and is set to launch in many more markets within the coming year and currently almost half of all Click to Pay checkouts on purchases are performed by returning users.”

“We have seen 94% checkout conversion rate for returning users on a trusted device based on Mastercard internal analysis (for top 10 Click to Pay merchants pulled from H1 2022), up to 3pp improvement in approval rates (for tokenized transactions compared to PAN transactions). We have been working with 70+ Payment Service Providers globally to implement embedded experiences,” adds Amnah Ajmal, Executive Vice President, Market Development at Mastercard EEMEA.