The ‘Login and Pay’ service will be similar to PayPal’s, with Amazon hoping that its own version will prove just as popular amongst its online shoppers who crave a speedy checkout. The service certainly has the potential to shorten transaction times significantly, completely eliminating the need to enter personal and card information every time they wish to pay for an item. And with the etailer currently boasting a customer account base of around 215 million, it seems many retailers could also reap the benefits of the new system if they choose to embrace it.

Tom Taylor, VP, Amazon Payments, explained: "Login and Pay with Amazon enables companies to make millions of our customers their customers by inviting online shoppers with Amazon credentials to access their account information safely and securely with a single login."

Sites that choose to sign up to system will be given access to widgets that will enable them to add an Amazon login option to their checkout.