Galileo Aims to Bolster Bill Pay With ‘Payment Switch’

Galileo Financial Technologies and Atomic have introduced a product designed to enhance consumer bill payments.

Galileo Payment Method Switch, announced Tuesday (May 20), makes it easier for people to update their default payment method, such as debit cards, credit cards and bank accounts, across merchants, subscription services, utility providers and digital wallets like Venmo or PayPal, in a single place.

“Galileo Payment Method Switch allows banks, FinTechs and brands to help customers easily manage bill payments without leaving an app they already trust,” Prashant Shah, vice president for product management at Galileo, said in a news release. “This solution keeps people spending in a branded environment, creating new recurring revenue streams, which are proven to be stickier, more predictable and scalable.”

According to the release, clients can embed Galileo Payment Method Switch into their apps, making their own issued card or account “the most visible and convenient option for recurring bills and everyday payments,” thus helping them become their customers’ preferred choice amid an ongoing rise in subscription-based and automatic payments.

As research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown, the availability of preferred payment methods is a key factor in determining consumers’ online shopping decisions.

“How Preferred Payment Availability Can Reduce Cart Abandonment,” a collaboration with Adobe, found that 70% of consumers see the availability of their preferred payment method as very or extremely influential when choosing an online store.

“This preference appears to be a driver of cart abandonment rates across online platforms,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this year.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke last month with David Feuer, chief product officer for Galileo, about efforts by companies such as his to enhance the customer experience by bringing payments innovations to the forefront.

“We’re seeing a diversification of what remittances mean, what cross-border transactions mean,” he said, adding that “there are many more ways of exchanging value than there were just five years ago.”

As a result, “expectations around service providers are much higher than they used to be,” Feuer told PYMNTS. He added that Galileo has multiple customers doing business internationally, and they want to push into new markets but need help with compliance and developing new features on a market-by-market basis.

“We can be there with them on the journey,” said Feuer. “We enable them along the way to extend their brand … and create connectivity and ecosystems between those different countries so they can operate efficiently and at scale, with a global remit.”