Virtual Reality Payments

After sluggish acceptance since the 1990s, the virtual reality (VR) market is finally heating up. VR sales are projected to grow rapidly to more than $28 billion by 2020—up from $1.5 billion today—with VR software sales leading the way.

It’s within this dynamic that Payscout launched the world’s first VR commerce app to help merchants manage purchases made on digital shopping platforms. The app is accessed through a mobile-compatible VR headset used with Android smartphones. Once the smartphone is placed inside the viewer, consumers can shop for physical goods within a VR experience such as a video game, virtual shopping mall, or VR movie.

To turn virtual transactions into real revenue, Payscout uses APIs in Oracle Financials Cloud to connect to banks and credit card networks on all types of transaction platforms. And with Oracle ERP Cloud, Payscout is able to streamline transaction flows from purchase to payment receipt within minutes, without manual processing. Payscout’s innovative technology is helping the company differentiate its brand and leapfrog competitors, whose apps are still limited to web and mobile commerce platforms.

The company hopes the new app will increase its share of the international ecommerce market, which is expected to reach $1 trillion in sales by 2020, increasing from today’s $375 billion, according to a recent study from Accenture and AliResearch.