Dive Brief:

• Payments processor Fiserv and the U.S. arm of the Dutch grocery chain Ahold Delhaize plan to expand a pay-by-bank pilot so that it’s available to more of the company’s U.S. customers, they said in a press release Tuesday. 
• The companies introduced the pay-by-bank option last year on the grocer’s websites and mobile apps for three brands, namely The GIANT Company, Giant Food and Stop & Shop, but it will now be offered more broadly to customers, they said.
• Tens of thousands of the grocer’s customers have registered through the pilot of the company’s Pay by Bank program, enabling them to pay for purchases directly from their bank accounts, and giving them an alternative to debit or credit cards, the release said.

Dive Insight:

Retailers across the country, including Walmart, have become increasingly eager in recent years to let their customers pay for purchases without swiping a card. It’s part of a quest by merchants to decrease the interchange and network fees they must pay every time a consumer uses a payment card. 

Ahold Delhaize, which has an East Coast niche through its ownership of Stop & Shop, Giant Food, The Giant Company, Food Lion and Hannaford, introduced the option last year for its customers to enroll in a program that allows them to provide a link to their bank accounts for future purchases. Aside from simplicity, the grocer said it improves reliability and security.

This expansion will make the pay-by-bank capability “fully available on Ahold Delhaize USA’s proprietary omnichannel platform across the e‑commerce websites and mobile apps” for those three brands, a spokesperson for the company said. Digital shoppers of those brands can now use the pay-by-bank option at checkout for online grocery orders.

“Pay by Bank provides a simple way for customers to pay directly from their bank accounts, creating a seamless checkout experience and increased choice for the customer in terms of how they prefer to pay,” Ahold Delhaize USA’s chief commercial and digital officer, Keith Nicks, said in the release.

Interest for pay-by-bank options among retailers and other merchants has risen over the past decade with advances in real-time payments. In addition to the real-time RTP network offered by a group of banks through The Clearing House, the Federal Reserve launched its instant payments system for banks in 2023.

That year, executives at Milwaukee-based Fiserv discussed how the company had signed an agreement with Walmart to provide pay-by-bank capabilities to that mega retailer. The grocery chain Kroger has also taken an interest in the payment method.