Bank of America just made it easier for you to shop online (BAC, V)

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Shopping online can be a pain when you need to constantly re-enter all of your information, but Bank of America just made the process a bit easier for some of its customers.

The second-largest U.S. bank has announced that it would automatically enroll some cardholders in Visa Checkout, Visa's one-click buy button that lets users easily complete transactions online.

Typically a user must enter all their information to log in and then he or she can use the one-click functionality. Now, a portion of Bank of America customers can skip that step altogether.

This partnership shows that customer acquisition is a strategic priority for Visa. The completion rate for Visa Checkout is already rather high, as users completed 86% of their purchases in the fourth quarter of 2015. So Visa is likely now trying to expand the Checkout user base.

Visa announced in February that it would integrate a Google API that facilitates address auto-completion. Banks that automatically register consumers should further ease this process.

These factors combined could substantially increase the number of Visa Checkout users, which would help the service be more competitive with other one-click options available online.

If Visa makes it easier for customers to shop on mobile, then that should give the company consumer-facing visibility as more people shop on smartphones. BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, forecasts that mobile commerce will account for 45% of all U.S. e-commerce retail sales in 2020. Therefore, it will be important for Visa and peer companies to ease the mobile shopping process for customers.

The way in which we pay for goods is changing rapidly, and companies such as Visa are doing all they can to keep up. Addressing consumers' needs and desires is crucial for companies that want to stay viable in the evolving payments process.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

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Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:

• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.