In this third edition of the monthly Trustly Insight column, the company’s VP of Gaming, Vasilije Lekovic emphasises the importance of user experience that meets modern needs and how Trustly Express, the transformative returning user payment functionality, delivers for both users and operators alike.
Your users don’t have time to waste. Optimising their user experience to make fast and secure deposits is critical to success. That’s why the launch and success of our innovative functionality Trustly Express is so exciting and spells big opportunities for your business.
Today’s generation of tech-savvy digital natives are used to instant results delivered on modern formats like phones. They’re extremely negative towards any inconvenience when buying or gaming online. And why not? They have seen what’s possible as technology advances and expect to see that in every aspect of their digital lives.
Seamless and frictionless deposits are naturally more important today than ever before. Our team at Open Banking payments provider Trustly has been obsessed with optimising user experiences since our founding. We’ve learnt a lot in the process and we’re delighted with the outcome – Trustly Express, a functionality that shortens the steps to complete a deposit and adds another layer of reassurance when paying. More on that in a moment.
Innovation is at the heart of Trustly’s business
In case we’re new to you, Trustly is an Open Banking payments provider founded in 2008. Our direct banking product lets users make deposits directly from their bank account in just a few simple steps. And receive payouts just as easily with funds moving instantly to or from your business.
We’ve worked closely with gaming operators to solve their biggest challenges from inception. Our commitment to creating solutions for our partners has made us the global leader in payments from gaming. But we won’t stop there.
Take the creation of Pay N Play and Pay N Play 2.0 for example. We launched that product to directly solve the problem of slow and complicated user onboarding and it has become the industry standard in Sweden, Finland and Estonia, with Pay N Play 2.0 now set to transform user onboarding in the Netherlands too.
There are many factors that limit optimising the user experience through Open Banking. Constraints from banks via poor and non-existent APIs or sluggish authentication methods are 2 such factors. Despite this, Trustly has managed to innovate over the years by working with regulators, participating in forums and even advising on the EU’s landmark PSD2 legislation. The landscape and potential for Open Banking capabilities is better than ever.
Before creating Trustly Express, we sought to lay out what user experience issues we could solve with our product, especially compared to cards or e-wallets. How could we offer something better? The exploration led to Trustly Express – it solves some of the issues with other payment methods and keeps the benefits. It’s the best of both worlds.
Forget card-on-file, the successor has arrived
Trustly Express allows users to store their bank account-on-file with you for seamless and fast repeat spending. First-time deposits have the same Trustly benefits of instant pay-ins and enriched data. For all subsequent deposits, operators that have activated Trustly Express will display the user’s bank logo, masked bank account number and bank account name in the cashier.
If you’re a card user, you’ll know card-on-file where your payment card details are stored in the cashier and only require confirmation of the CVC number.
Not anymore. As a consequence of PSD2, users are now required to perform a strong customer authentication (SCA) even with card-on-file. And as a card user, you know the experience is often not optimised; cards weren’t created to handle this additional step of authentication and it can make paying awkward.
Trustly’s products were built for SCA as an integral part of the flow from inception. With Trustly, you can verify your deposit with face or fingerprint authentication instead of SMS or another outdated method.
The benefits don’t stop there.
- Trustly Express makes users feel secure; banks are trusted institutions and seeing bank information in the cashier is a stamp of authenticity. Seeing that information provides familiarity, a sense of connection and builds on the relationship they have with their bank.
- Trustly Express cuts deposit times in half; your users expect instant results and reduced complexity. Trustly Express skips the bank account selection step and 1 of the 2 SCAs to shorten deposit times by up to 50%.
- Trustly Express expands users’ bank options; users can store multiple bank accounts across banks, all in one place. Users are increasingly likely to have dedicated gaming accounts with their bank or elsewhere. Trustly Express lets you store that information to make paying easy.
Trustly Express makes the returning user experience second to none. But now you might be thinking, why should I care so much about the user experience?
Why optimising your users’ experience matters for your business
Let’s set aside the obvious that easy convenient deposits are essential for conversion and growth. You know that already, that’s why you’re here.
A key userbase – tech-savvy digital natives – grows larger every year. Not only that but other generations are coming to enjoy the ease of digital progress. Speed and security is key to Trustly Express and so is the high-tech experience. Authenticating with face or fingerprint, seeing bank details in the cashier, handling it all on your phone – it feels innovative because it is innovative. And your business shows off its cutting-edge credentials by offering the experience.
Cards are a thing of the past. Yes, they’re popular but that’s not necessarily because they are the best solution. The method is over 60 years old and it shows. Cards expire (bank accounts don’t), cards can be lost, they lead to chargebacks – which Trustly has basically eliminated, they are vulnerable to fraud, they have spending limits and they’re more expensive than Open Banking payments in markets like the UK.
Treat yourself to Trustly Express instead. You can implement it in 2 different ways. Either using the Trustly Widget which requires no additional work beyond plugging it into your platform. Or the full-control version where you make adjustments to the cashier. Both will provide your business and your users with a cashier experience that boosts conversion and growth.
A track record of success
Many payment service providers (PSPs) talk about innovation. You’ve heard the marketing jargon and in reality, it’s often theoretical – you implement the solution and it doesn’t deliver the benefits promised.
But Trustly Express has been live since May 2022 meaning we have more than 6 months of data to back up our claims and we see that this feature is performing above expectations.
We are live with multiple operators and the product is available across Sweden, Finland, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. With the live operators, the data shows that Trustly Express has increased conversion by an average of 3-5%. And we saw an 8% increase in the number of transactions between June-October 2022. Since launching we’ve processed several millions of transactions through Trustly Express so when we talk about what this could do for your business, we have real data to back it up. It’s live and it’s a better user experience, faster time to deposit, higher conversion, more volume processed and cheaper than card payments.
Leading the way
Since the company was founded in 2008, Trustly has led the way when it comes to innovation in payments for online gambling, and Trustly Express is just another such example. And as in any other industry, it’s natural that others will seek to replicate the success of the innovator. That’s something we’re happy about as it will keep raising the bar for great payment experiences and other companies in the space will need to try to bring their products to a similar level. And you know what they say about imitation and flattery.
But there’s a big difference between being a pioneer and a follower. Trustly understands the reasons behind the innovation and is motivated by solving problems that we address in partnership with our merchants. We release products and features only when they solve problems – we refuse to rush out a sub-par product. We optimise the user experience in the way tech-savvy digital natives expect and demand. The motivation behind a product or feature is key. And so is the expertise and years of experience that our team has acquired since 2008.
Trustly Express is another iteration of our approach and our deeply felt commitment to providing real value for our partners. We will continue to improve on this feature to ensure that it continually drives success for operators and users alike. Creating an outstanding user experience is essential in the modern age. Work with us to stay ahead of the curve.
