Inside Facebook

Jambool, which launched its payments widget for social apps and online games in January, has just added a new way for players to buy virtual currency to its SocialGold payments platform: direct credit card payments without leaving the app.

It’s another step in making in-app virtual currency purchases even more frictionless. Currently, most web-based payment options require users to leave the app to go through payment flows on Paypal or Amazon.

The in-app credit card payment option is now live on several applications including (Lil) Green Patch and World War II. Here’s how it looks:

How has the in-app purchase flow affected conversion rates? Jambool CEO Vikas Gupta says that apps that have implemented the new payment option have seen jumps of up to 50%. In addition, Gupta notes that once players make a credit card payment once they can pay again on any game in the network without having to reenter their credit card information.

The social application payments space is evolving quickly. Payment providers are rushing to expand their geographic coverage and provide more advanced analytics systems to help developers learn from their users purchase patterns, while at the same time managing fraud and customer service. However, there is still a lot of room for making the user experience more frictionless, and SocialGold’s in-app credit card purchase option is another good step in that direction for Facebook app developers to consider.