MarketWatch:
Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., the two largest U.S. card networks, said Wednesday that they’re planning to drop their longstanding initiatives to get online shoppers to use dedicated payment buttons. The two payments giants instead want to create a new online option that would amount to a shared single payment button that could succeed the current pay tabs, Visa Checkout and Mastercard Masterpass.
Their announcements, made at a payment-industry conference Wednesday in Las Vegas, mark a sharp turnaround for the companies, which had been investing in and marketing their individual pay tabs for years. The rethink in strategy is a further sign of how difficult the digital-payments realm has become and shows the companies are looking for new ways to compete for online customers’ attention against PayPal Holdings Inc. and other payment firms.
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