‘Partial’ Approval Helps Merchants Close Sales, Drive Loyalty, New Revenues

In payments, having the right data is critical.

But for merchants, having the right data at the right time can close the sale. The right information can even turn a declined transaction into a completed one by helping consumers “pick and choose” among several payment options, which in turn helps boost acceptance rates.

Nuvei President Yuval Ziv told Karen Webster in a conversation that such payment choices move beyond functioning as mere utility and become a strategic driver of consumer preference and loyalty.

Payments used to be considered that last milestone, he said, but after investing so much in marketing and product design, the last thing a merchant wants to do is lose an existing or a would-be customer. Adding in additional functionalities, he said, brings additional value to the end user.

See also: Payments Processing Moves From Cost Center to Revenue Driver in Global eCommerce

A few things are table stakes by this point, said Ziv. Merchants, no matter the vertical, need to make sure the customer experience is a smooth one so that they can come back to that enterprise’s site and feel at home.

But beyond demanding a frictionless experience, consumers want their merchants to offer a range of options such as subscriptions, discounts and even complementary goods and services as individuals go through the commerce journey.

“If the merchant has the capability to receive data properly analyzed by the merchant team or by the payment provide — or by both — then you are really pushing forward towards a streamlined checkout process,” said Ziv.

Inflation is Top of Mind

Consumers, of course, are becoming more particular about the merchants with whom they choose to do business. Inflation is top of mind for each one of us.

The balancing act of juggling cash flow and accounts can be especially onerous, resulting in declines due to nonsufficient funds.

But Ziv said advanced analytics could foster partial approval from issuing banks, keeping merchants’ top-line momentum intact. And higher approval rates can keep consumers coming back, too.

“At the end of the day,” said Ziv, “the data is the source of delivering customization and how merchants can manage customers’ preferences better.”

He pointed to the partial approval, as offered by Nuvei, as a particularly effective customization tool that can help manage those preferences. The solution, leveraging data from the card schemes and alternative payment providers, helps prod consumers via pop-up messages to use a range of payment methods cumulatively to make sure there’s enough funding on hand to close the sale, using, say, a combination of credit and debit cards. Or they can opt to buy only some of the items in their shopping cart. This fine-tuning takes place before the point of checkout, and the sale winds up being salvageable.

“Because the merchant has the data to recognize specific user preferences from past experiences, the user feels that they are ‘recognized’ and the transaction is completed in a way that’s convenient,” he said.

Ziv remarked that the philosophy of the tailored experience could be extended across merchants’ business models — where, for instance, a subscription can be extended. In another example, high-priced luxury goods, which may be outside the daily payment limits of most cards, can be underpinned by relatively more secure (and higher limit) ACH transactions.

The advanced analytics, added Ziv, also can be useful in streamlining and authenticating transactions with insight into how customers transact with certain devices in specific geographies. As he told Webster, Nuvei has improved the onboarding activities of its enterprise clients so that more consumers come online to transact.

“The data and the reporting are what gives the merchant the opportunity to improve their bottom lines and cement the loyalty of their users,” he told Webster.