Welcome to our first global payments news roundup for September. Lots of important news as we move into the busy fall business cycle. Accenture research shows UK challenger banks will triple in size in the next 12 months – substantial growth and the new competitive reality. Finder.com research shows the tab for US drunk shoppers in 2018, was more than $39.4 billion. Yikes! MSTS research says B2B sellers are having a tough time meeting customer expectations with shopping cart abandonment reaching 57%. That’s a lot of lost business. In Europe, a new mobile payments group is looking to build a new, more interoperable, and more effective payments network for customers and consumers.
In the payments news roundup, UK retailers lost $9.83 billion to cart abandonment because of a lack of payment options. Stripe Capital launches new instant loans service for customers. Retailers added 600,000 new EMV chip card in the US in the first six months of 2019. Insurtech startups are putting pressure on the industry to accelerate digital payments options. US digital bank Chime reached 500,000 new customers and added new overdraft features. UK fulfillment service Huboo raised $1.23 million to expand its service offer to e-commerce SMEs. Good reading and enjoy your weekend!
Report: UK challenger banks will triple size in 12 months
Accenture predicts UK digital-only challenger banks will triple in size from 12 million users to more than 35 million users in the next 12 months. A new Accenture report says five million new customers opened digital-only bank accounts in the first six months of 2019, reflecting 170% growth in customer acquisition. Read more…
US drunk shoppers spent $39.4 billion in 2018
This just in. Americans have got the message about the dangers of drunk driving, but apparently, they missed the memo about drunk shopping. Recent research shows that boozing buyers spent $39.4 billion shopping in 2018 while under the influence, in-store and online. In the latest Drunk Shopping Survey from finder.com, 26% of Americans admit to shopping while drunk. That’s 53.4 million shoppers stumbling across their keyboards and swaying through the shopping center trying to buy the latest Show Dogs or Gotti video or a birthday sweater gift for their mother-in-law in Miami. Read more…
B2B cart abandonment: Hidden problems & possibilities
MSTS is out with a new report on B2B sellers and buyer payment preferences. There are valuable insights and solutions to some of the challenges faced by B2B sellers, but one statistic shocked me. The research showed that 57% of B2B buyers did not complete a purchase for their companies because the vendor checkout process took too long. With all of the tools and technology, choice of payments partners, and features available to B2B vendors, it’s hard to imagine that businesses selling to business would see cart abandonment levels this high. Read more…
EU mobile group building new cross-border payments network
Recognizing the threat from fintech startups as well as mobile powerhouses like Alipay, a group of seven European payments leaders has started building a new network focused on improving cross-border mobile payments in the EU. EMPSA members have more than 25 million users across the EU through 350 partner banks and more than one million transaction points. Read more…
UK retailers lose GBP 8 bln ($9.83B) from lack of payment options online
UK retailers are losing an estimated GBP 8 billion ($9.83 billion) in revenue due to a lack of payment options online, according to research from Adyen. The research found that customers being unable to pay with their preferred payment methods – such as digital wallets or international cards – lead to billions of pounds in abandoned purchases. The findings demonstrate the need for retailers to take steps to expand their checkout options, given that online shopping accounts for almost 20% of all UK purchases. Read more…
Stripe launches Stripe Capital to make instant loan offers to customers on its platform
Stripe is launching Stripe Capital, a service for advancing cash to customers that in turn gets repaid out of their future sales made through Stripe’s payment platform, with loan amounts and repayments based on the customer’s transaction activity on Stripe itself. The service is being made available both to direct customers of Stripe’s and to business customers of platforms and marketplaces that use Stripe Connect. Read more…
US merchants enabled 600,000 new locations for chip card acceptance in 2019’s first half
US merchants added 600,000 locations for EMV chip card acceptance in 2019’s first six months, and Visa issuers cranked out an additional 10 million EMV payment cards, according to Visa Inc. In its latest update on the US conversion from magnetic-stripe payment cards to the EMV chip card standard, Visa reported 3.7 million US locations in June accepted EMV cards, compared with 3.5 million in March and 3.1 million last December. Some 80% of storefronts now accept chip cards, up from 75% and 68% in March and December, respectively, according to Visa. Read more…
Why the insurance industry should prioritize digital payments
It’s a sector that up until recently has been slow to change, but thanks to the advances in disruptive digital technologies around the world, the insurance industry is being shaken up by ‘insurtech’. In 2018 alone insurtech enjoyed $1.7 billion in investment and it’s great for bringing the insurance industry into the modern age. But insurance still has a big issue and it’s one that frustrates those working in insurance and the customers of these companies. That issue is payments. Read more…
Chime reaches 5 million mobile banking customers and expands overdraft coverage
Chime, the San Francisco-based mobile banking fintech, said it has signed up more than 5 million customers for an FDIC-insured account and said that its SpotMe overdraft protection feature is expanding after completing a beta period during the summer. The SpotMe overdraft feature allows customers with direct deposit the ability to overdraw up to $100 in debit card coverage without incurring overdraft fees. The amount of coverage depends on several factors, including the account history of individual customers. Customers must have direct deposits of at least $500 to qualify. Read more…
Huboo raises £1M ($1.23M) to take the pain out of e-commerce fulfillment
Huboo, a UK startup that operates a multi-channel fulfillment service for e-commerce businesses of varying sizes has raised £1 million ($1.23 million) in seed funding. Huboo aims to solve the fulfillment pain point that most online stores face. The service promises to store your stock, and then “pick, pack and deliver it” automatically as customer orders are placed. Read more…
LET’S CONNECT