Cardless payment acceptance
Relying on card payments is expensive. Alternative Payment Methods (APMs) like PayPal or Apple Pay typically carry similar fees.
Payment methods using modern infrastructure can be more cost-effective, thanks to laws reshaping the European payments ecosystem.
This article compares cardless payments via Citizen to conventional card payments.
What does Citizen’s cardless payment flow look like?
And this is how we do it. No cards, no typing. One simple integration
Open Banking and payment initiation
Citizen is a Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP). This means we can transfer funds between accounts, without the delays and costs of using payment card infrastructure.
We’re able to do this because PSD2 makes banks in the EU & UK share customer account data with PISPs like us.
Why are card transactions expensive?
Here’s what happens during a card payment.
A customer wants to buy something online — they make a payment by submitting their card information.
The payment is accepted by a payments gateway. This service is integrated with the merchant’s website. From here the payment moves to the merchant’s bank account via a processing service. These services use a card company (like VISA or MasterCard) to move the payment between the customer’s bank and the merchant’s bank.
Each player charges a fee for their role in the transaction. These include interchange fees for moving the payment between banks, fees charged by the payment gateway to cover their costs, and acquiring fees charged by the payment processor on behalf of the merchant.
Once these fees are combined, the total cost to the merchant can range from 1.5–5% of every transaction.
Cardless payment acceptance is a simpler process.
How does cardless payment acceptance work?
Cardless payment acceptance relies on one company with the authority to directly move money between accounts. This is payment initiation, which we already discussed.
The total cost of the transaction is set entirely by this company. They don’t have to pay fees to the banks, a card company, or a payments processor. This lets them keep the fee they charge to merchants lower.
And because the funds move directly from the customer’s account to the business’, these payments settle instantly.
Citizen provides cardless payments and customer identification services.
Learn more about Citizen on our website, by following this link.
