Wirecard Launches Mobile Checkout Development Platform for Retailers

Wirecard Group today announced the launch of an innovative mobile checkout development platform for retailers. Wirecard's new retail payments platform enables retailers to increase the appeal and functional scope of their own app by integrating open- and closed-loop contactless payments, peer-to-peer gifting, offers and merchant loyalty functionality.

Today, closed-loop mobile payment and checkout applications by retailers are dominating the mobile payments market in terms of usage frequency and transaction volumes. Retail apps are rapidly gaining market share with nearly half of all major retailers having launched their own smartphone app.

Mobile payments are also rapidly gaining traction in the global market for retail gift cards. In the United States alone, the market for retail gift cards is expected to reach USD 149 billion by 2017, with a staggering USD 14 billion expected to be sent peer-to-peer between consumers as electronic gift cards. 

Wirecard's retail checkout platform integrates seamlessly with a retailer's existing loyalty programs and promotions and helps to enhance the in-store experience by providing real-time information on loyalty and discount offers to consumers. Furthermore it improves the consumer's experience in-store at the point of payment and enriches the consumer's after-purchase experience thanks to electronic receipts.

"Annually hundreds of millions of payments are conducted with retailer-specific payment instruments - ranging from gift cards to smartphone applications developed by retailers," says Dr. Markus Braun, CEO of Wirecard AG. "Our new retail payments platform enables retailers to increase the appeal of their smartphone applications by leveraging Wirecard's extensive range of payment, couponing and loyalty functionalities."

Wirecard's retail payments development platform enables payments based on QR-code as well as NFC technology using Host Card Emulation (HCE), and Secure Elements on mobile phones and SIM cards. Payment transactions can be processed either through a retailer's own closed-loop scheme or using open-loop payment networks such as Visa or MasterCard.

European retailers who want to launch a retail payment product accepted by more than a single retailer particularly benefit from leveraging the possibility to issue payment instruments through Wirecard Bank, a licensed financial institution.

Currently several leading European retailers are piloting closed-loop payment value propositions built on Wirecard's mobile retail checkout development platform with commercial launches expected in the second half of 2015.