In a move to increase adoption, Revolut has automatically enrolled all its UK-issued cards into the Click to Pay system, which is jointly operated by the major global card schemes. This initiative forms part of a broader industry effort to position Click to Pay as a credible competitor to established digital wallets, such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.
GlobalData Online Consumer Payment Analytics
Click to Pay promises a seamless and secure checkout experience, leveraging tokenisation and, where enabled, biometric authentication to protect consumer data. Despite these advantages and some other banks having previously enrolled all cards on Click to Pay, adoption has remained sluggish. GlobalData’s Online Consumer Payment Analytics 2025 shows that only 4% of online shoppers in the UK have ever used a Click to Pay checkout.
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This points to a deeper issue beyond availability, suggesting that low consumer awareness, limited merchant prompting or defaulting to existing wallets continue to hinder uptake.
Click to Pay: Merchant benefits
For merchants, Click to Pay offers tangible benefits, including the potential to reduce cart abandonment and fraud, alongside improved conversion rates. However, these benefits are not yet universally realised in practice. Merchant integration remains inconsistent and where Click to Pay is available, it is often not sufficiently prioritised in the checkout flow to meaningfully shift consumer behaviour. The system’s growing acceptance among major global retailers underscores its potential to become a staple in digital transactions.
Card networks and issuers stand to gain significantly from increasing adoption. By promoting Click to Pay, they can reinforce the primacy of card-based payments in digital commerce and reduce reliance on intermediary wallets controlled by tech giants. Mastercard’s ambition to phase out manual card entry in favour of tokenised transactions by 2030 underscores the strategic importance of this shift. That said, success will depend not just on issuer-led initiatives, but on coordinated ecosystem change, particularly at the merchant and gateway level.
Revolut’s decision to embrace Click to Pay, despite having its own Revolut Pay solution, signals a pragmatic alignment with card networks to strengthen its competitive positioning. This dual approach reflects a broader industry dynamic, where issuers balance proprietary payment methods with participation in scheme-led innovations. With a customer base exceeding 65 million, Revolut is well positioned to drive incremental awareness of Click to Pay.
In conclusion, while Revolut’s automatic enrolment strategy is a logical step forward, it does not itself resolve the core barriers to adoption. The key challenge will be shifting entrenched consumer behaviour and ensuring consistent merchant execution. As the digital payments landscape evolves, the success of Click to Pay will depend less on availability and more on its ability to deliver a clearly superior and visible checkout experience.
Blandina Szalay is an analyst, banking & payments, GlobalData
