The benefits of Google Wallet and Apple Pay in the corporate world

Mobile wallets: taking the headache away from embedded payments cards

Cited as one of the top 5 payment trends to watch for 2023, digital wallet adoption is set to grow even further next year and beyond. Research by McKinsey found that over two-thirds of Americans expect to have a mobile wallet within two years think Google Wallet and Apple Pay. Many think they will have three or more of them, which, the study says, “is a notable change from the legacy model of carrying around a single leather wallet.”

Here’s everything* you need to know about digital wallets like Google Wallet and Apple Pay, and why your business won’t want to be left behind this trend.

A digital wallet stores card details and sits in your mobile device enabling you to make purchases online or in the physical world either by tapping it just as you would for a contactless card payment or checking out online without having to populate your card details. Digital wallets take payments to a new level of convenience and security. But the wallet, as the word implies, is just a container. What are those payment cards that go inside the wallet and are being used to make payments? They may be ordinary payment cards from a traditional bank account, but that’s not the only possibility. Increasingly they are virtual cards, cards that don’t exist in the physical world, they are only digital credentials, generated by the everyday applications we use – not just the financial institution we bank with. Once your customers can load their embedded finance debit cards into their Apple Pay or Google Wallet, their usage and stickiness will skyrocket.

For example, Weavr has innovators on its platform who have seen an uplift in card volume of over 700% in the months after enabling Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

By monetising the embedded finance services, you can generate higher revenue per user and reduce churn – Weavr have reports of 2x revenue per user! As more and more of these apps embed the ability to offer their virtual debit cards and embedded finance as part of a rounder offering, it’s not just B2C and eCommerce, it’s coming to life in the B2B world too. For example, where employees have money to spend, like lunch allowances from an employer, an authorised payment for office equipment, or the ability to spend your earnings from a marketplace or gig-work platform, (businesses such as Ben, MONET, or finway, to name a few). Embedded finance use cases like these are all about designing good digital user experiences. So if digital wallets, Google Wallet and Apple Pay make it easier for customers to use those cards and spend those funds securely, than if they use a physical card or have to expense things through a lengthy process – that’s a big win. Most mobiles come with their own wallet that’s ready to go. For example, the iPhone has Apple Pay, Samsung has Samsung Pay, and other phones using the Android operating system have Google Pay. The great thing about mobile wallets from a business perspective is that they are easy to accept, as most in-person POS systems that allow contactless payments will also accept mobile wallet payments.

Let’s first look at some real-world examples, before exploring the nitty-gritty:

Let’s compare a physical plastic card to a digital wallet alternative scenario: Ready?

Scenario 1:

Imagine you’re working in your office and there’s only one shared company credit card to pay for stuff. Each time you want to use it:

• You have to get it from Sandra’s desk drawer
• Manually input the card details (probably twice, as that 3 really looked like an 8 on the first try)
• Oh, an SMS verification code has been sent to Sandra’s phone
• Gosh, darn it, Sandra’s off getting her hair done today
• Message Sandra – boy, she’ll be annoyed…
• 2 hours later… Sandra messages back with the code omitting any emojis (she’s raging)
• Enter code
• Code’s expired, re-send to Sandra with a promise of her fav chocolate bar when she’s back in the office tomorrow
• Ok, she sends back with a smiley face emoji – all is good with Sandra
• Enter code
• Ta-da – purchase made

(Won’t even get you to imagine Scenario 1 from the point of view of an on-the-road salesperson needing to pay for fuel in-person… Or having to pay suppliers/third parties. Too stressful.)

Scenario 2

Let’s now look at what that looks like with a Weavr mobile wallet embedded into a user’s application:

• Choose to pay with Apple Pay (or Google Wallet)
• Smile for the camera, face recognition authorisation complete
• Done

Poor Sandra… Think you’ll agree Scenario 2 is the more convenient, less complex, and secure option, right? *If we haven’t covered EVERYTHING you need to know in this article, we’re sorry – but the best way to hear more is to speak to one of the friendly, knowledgeable, “unashamedly geeky” peeps at Weavr.Fill out this short form, and one of the team will be in touch to chat and see how we can help supercharge your business with embedded finance and digital wallets. Carry on reading to see if we’ve answered your questions.

Enabling mobile wallets for embedded finance debit cards

Weavr allows you to generate Mastercard debit cards for your application’s users, under your branding and user-experience context. These can be virtual or physical (plastic) cards, and can be general-use or limited by certain conditions, including single-use, pre-paid, and other configurations you may choose. All of these embedded finance payment cards can be enabled for loading into Apple Pay and Google Wallet – but until now, doing so was a bit of a fiddly operation for users, as they had to copy-paste card details and switch between your app and the mobile wallet app. Now, Weavr can help you set up a simple “add to Apple Pay” or “add to Google Wallet” (or “add to G Pay”) button inside your app, which just takes a few taps for your user to complete. This is known as in-app push provisioning. In a simplified user experience flow, a user will be deep-linked into their mobile wallet with all the steps for transferring the card details and saving as a secure tokenised representation of the card fully automated. Once your user has their card(s) in their mobile wallet, they can use it securely to pay for both online purchases (including subscriptions) and in-person contactless payments. The mobile wallets only store a token representing the payment card, so merchants don’t see or use the original payment card number, making this an excellent combination of security and convenience for your users. As a digital innovator, you are able to gain useful insights into the usage of financial features in your app via aggregated analytics and cardholder drill down. Weavr provides out of the box in portal dashboards: and this includes data about card transactions and whether the transactions occurred through a mobile wallet. Making it easier to add payment cards to mobile wallets featured back in our September update.

Implementation in two levels

Manual provisioning 

While it is possible to set up “manual provisioning” first, we recommend the full “push provisioning” approach for maximum user experience convenience and uptake.

Push provisioning is the gold standard

With push provisioning for mobile wallets, you can make it much easier for your users to add their embedded payment cards into Apple Pay and Google Wallet, and use these cards wherever they want (subject to the usage conditions you and the account holders have set up, of course). Setup for manual provisioning of cards in mobile wallets is outlined in Weavr pricing for commercial and consumer-focused applications, and please enquire with your account manager when you are considering the upgrade to in-app push provisioning. All of this is possible with Weavr’s plug-and-play embedded finance solutions.Want to know more? Fill out this short form, and one of the team will be in touch to chat and see how we can help supercharge your business with embedded finance and digital wallets.