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Card Payments: Unchanged for Decades
The story of card payments in India mirrors the nation’s digitisation journey in itself.
From the first credit card in the 1980s to the expansion of debit cards and ATM networks in 1990, 2000s marked the decade where cards became most Indians’ first credit instrument, powering online shopping.
Generations of Indians have grown accustomed to the same online card payment experience – one that has remained largely unchanged. From the beginning, it meant typing in a 16-digit card number, expiry date, and CVV into a checkout form. The introduction of two-factor authentication added an extra step: a redirect to the bank’s page to enter a one-time password.
In 2020, tokenisation of cards was introduced. Once tokenised on a merchant’s app or website, the card no longer needs to be re-entered; future checkouts require only authentication (such as OTP or biometric), making repeat payments faster and more secure.
Yet every new website required the card details to be entered once to tokenise and save them.
So, the payment experience still relies on your memory – those 16 digits remain the gatekeeper for the first transaction. This friction leads to a 30% users drop off at checkout.
Why Enter Card Details Again and Again?
The answer to this lies in the technology behind tokenisation. In India, the most widely used method is called card-on-file tokenisation. Here, the card details are converted into a token by the card network (Visa, Mastercard, Rupay) and linked only to the specific website where the card is being saved. This token cannot be used on any other website.
What if one secure token worked everywhere?
Imagine a world where card details are entered just once – and the card just shows up at checkout on every website, even for a first-time purchase.
That’s the promise of Device Tokenisation.
Unlike card on file Tokenisation, which is merchant specific, device tokens are bound to your device – your phone, tablet or smartwatch. The card network issues a token that lives securely in your device’s vault. Since this token is device bound and not tied to an individual website, this can be used across multiple websites. At the same time, it remains usable only on that device, making device tokens super-secure.
This technology is already in use globally through giants like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, but its application has largely been limited to specific scenarios – mostly in offline payments for tap-to-pay transactions. A card saved in Samsung Pay, for instance, can be used at NFC-enabled terminals, but it does not automatically appear at checkout on every e-commerce website.
Making Device Tokenisation Work for Your Business: Introducing CardLink, Powered by CRED + Cashfree.
Until now, device tokenisation has mostly lived inside closed ecosystems – wallets like Apple Pay or Samsung Pay limited to offline scenarios. But what if the same technology could power online checkouts at scale, across merchants?
This is precisely what Cashfree, in partnership with CRED, is enabling.
With this solution, saved cards on CRED can seamlessly appear at any website checkout powered by Cashfree – a solution built on the power of device tokens.
With this solution, the customer journey remains seamless.
What does this mean for your business?
3x Faster Payments
With cards pre-fetched on checkout, even for first-time users, checkout is super fast, resulting in a better customer experience.
5% Higher success Rates
Success rates improve by 5-6% because of fewer manual card input errors and an increased approval rate for device tokens.
10% Lower Drop-Offs
A whopping 35% of customers have reported dropping off from a checkout when asked to enter card details manually. A frictionless, pre-fetched card experience reduces dropoff by at least 10%
With over 2 million cards already saved on CRED, merchants using Cashfree Checkout can instantly offer a faster, smoother card payment experience to a large base of customers.
Future-proof your payment stack with India’s most advanced tokenization engine. Explore the API Docs or Talk to our Product Team to see how Device Tokenization fits your flow.
Building India’s Linked Card Network
CardLink essentially opens up an entire network of linked cards, breaking barriers between apps. Today, we are live with CRED. We are working with popular payment apps to create a saved card ecosystem. This means that a card saved once anywhere on this ecosystem will be linked and pre-fetched at Cashfree checkout. No more entering card numbers again.
This isn’t just the next chapter in the story of card payments in India; it’s the beginning of a future where card payments become intuitive and instant.
At Cashfree, we are committed to creating a payments future where every card transaction is as natural as a tap, a glance or a blink!
Join the future of frictionless commerce. 10X faster checkouts are just one integration away, Click here to Get Started with Cashfree.
