Every confirmation step added to a payment needs a way through for the shoppers who struggle with it
In January 2022 the Forbes Technology Council published thirteen ideas from its members on improving digital payments. It is an expert panel, not research, and most ideas concern infrastructure. A few are about the moment a shopper pays. One panel member called for extra security layers such as temporary, single-use card numbers. Another wanted every payment approved with a fingerprint or another biometric check. A third asked for checkouts that work for people who use screen readers or live with cognitive or mobility impairments, and a fourth argued that fewer clicks and redirects mean higher conversion. Read side by side, these ideas pull in different directions. Each added layer of security is one more step the shopper has to complete, and the shoppers who find steps hardest are the ones the accessibility idea was meant to include.
Biometric confirmation is now one of several ways a shopper approves a payment, and which one they meet depends on their bank, not on the webshop. Recent European research shows that no single method works for everyone. It also shows where the confirmation step leaves some shoppers behind, and most of the remedies sit in the part of the checkout you do control.
The confirmation is where vulnerable shoppers get stuck
In November 2025 a report on how digitalisation affects access to electronic payments for citizens in vulnerable positions was submitted to the Euro Retail Payments Board. It rests on a survey by the European System of Central Banks, run in February 2025, to which 134 associations in 25 EU countries replied. They represent older people and people with visual, mobility, hearing or intellectual disabilities, among others. Association staff answered on behalf of their members, response numbers varied widely between countries, and the authors ask readers to treat the results with caution, particularly in quantitative terms. The figures below describe what these associations report, not measured shopper behaviour.
Within those limits the pattern is clear. Asked about difficulties with paying online, 68% of the associations named recognising fraudulent websites, 61% said their members struggle to understand how online payment works, and 50% reported difficulties with payment confirmation. Finding help at the online checkout is perceived as a key issue as well. Asked which services had made payment confirmation easier, the associations most often mentioned fingerprint recognition, a one-time password by text message and facial recognition, but the report finds that no single method clearly stands out for vulnerable groups. It cites the SPACE 2024 consumer study as well, in which 9% of respondents said they need assistance when paying online, rising to 10% among those aged 65 and over.
A shopper who stalls at the confirmation rarely tells you so. In your analytics the session simply ends somewhere between the payment method and the order confirmation, and it looks like any other abandoned payment.
What your checkout controls before and after the bank
You cannot change how a bank asks its customer to confirm. You do decide what the shopper knows before they get there, how long the order waits for them, and what they find when they come back.
Start with the step before the hand-off. Say in plain words, next to the pay button, that the next screen belongs to their bank and that they will be asked to confirm the amount there. Use the same shop name on the payment page as on your site, so the shopper who worries about fake shops does not meet an unfamiliar name at the moment they are asked to approve.
Then look at time. The accompanying recommendations from the board’s secretariat, addressed to payment service providers, point to a success criterion in the web accessibility guidelines, WCAG 2.1, for this situation: when an authenticated session expires, the user can continue after authenticating again without losing data. They link it to feedback that feeling rushed is a challenge, particularly for people with cognitive impairments, often older people. In your checkout that means a basket, a delivery choice and an address that survive a slow confirmation, a session that does not expire while the shopper is still in the banking app, and an order that stays reserved long enough for someone who needs several attempts.
Finally, the way back. When the confirmation fails or is cancelled, the shopper should land on a page that keeps the order, explains in one sentence what happened, and offers both a new attempt and a different payment method. An empty cart or a generic error page sends the shoppers who needed the most help back to the start. Put a visible route to help on that page and on the payment step itself, such as a phone number with opening hours, because that is where the associations see finding help as a key issue.
A second payment method is part of the accessibility work
The same recommendations ask providers to offer at least one free way to authenticate that does not depend on access to a secured banking app. The shopper’s options depend on their bank and device, not only on your list of methods. When you review your payment methods, ask of each one whether a shopper without a smartphone, or with limited dexterity, can complete it. If every method you offer ends in the same kind of app approval, a shopper who cannot do that has no second route on your site.
The panel’s idea of fewer redirects needs the same correction. For many payments the shopper leaves your page to confirm with their bank, and the webshop cannot remove that step. What makes it workable is a checkout that explains it beforehand and holds the order while it happens.
Test the payment step at the pace of your slowest customer
This week, run three test orders through your own checkout. In the first, wait ten minutes in the banking app before you confirm. In the second, cancel the confirmation and return to your site. In the third, let the confirmation fail and try a different method. Each time, check whether the basket, the address and the delivery choice are still there, whether the page tells you what happened, and whether you can see how to get help. Then ask your customer service team how many contacts last month were about a payment that would not go through, and treat that number as part of your conversion figures.
Sources: forbes.com, ecb.europa.eu, ERPB report and ecb.europa.eu, ERPB recommendations
