ROYAL BANK UNVEILS ELECTRONIC WALLET
By Adnews Staff
The Royal Bank of Canada will be the first bank in Canada to offer its customers an electronic wallet to ease the hassles and insecurities of Internet shopping. The PowerWallet is designed to encourage more Internet users to buy online by saving them the drudgery of entering all their customer information over and over again each time they place an order. Credit card and billing information will instead be stored securely in the wallet account and submitted to the Web-based merchant with a single click. The wallet also keeps receipts of user purchases and remembers website-specific shopping preferences and passwords. "If two-thirds of customers in line at your neighborhood grocery store threw up their hands in frustration before reaching the cash register, you can bet someone would be doing something about it," said Chase Franklin, CEO of Qpass, the company which developed the wallet along with eHNC. "Our goal with PowerWallet is to eliminate the lengthy order processes, the hassle of keeping track of different passwords and the general insecurity of purchasing online." Royal Bank plans to launch a PowerWallet pilot program this fall. "The introduction of digital wallets will boost the growth of e-commerce in Canada," said Al McGale, vice-president of eCommerce@Cards for Royal Bank. "PowerWallet is the kind of innovation Royal Bank is committed to bringing to our online customers."