Today In Data: Lost Revenue, ICO Lapses And Interchange Rates

Today in PYMNTS’ data, online merchants are missing out on billions in potential revenue, companies are merging in the quest for scale and actionable data, controversial initial coin offerings (ICOs) have lost millions to security and other issues, the government is still using paper to process millions of invoices and rising numbers of interchange rates are creating a race to the bottom.

Here are the numbers:

$200 billion | Value of potential revenue on which online merchants missed out because of frustrating, slow, complicated checkout procedures. The fresh-off-the-presses Checkout Conversion Index reveals the set of features it takes to woo a modern customer, including offering capabilities like a “same shipping as billing” address click box and no onerous profile creation requirements, among others.

$819 million | Amount for which U.K. information and analytics firm RELX has agreed to purchase digital identity company ThreatMetrix in its quest for scale, robust digital identities and real-time actionable data. Under the terms of the deal, ThreatMetrix announced news on Monday (Jan. 29) that it will be folded into RELX’s Risk & Business Analytics operations.

$400 million | Portion of the $3.7 billion raised via controversial ICOs that has been lost to lapses in security or phishing attacks, according to recent data from Ernst & Young, covered by Gizmodo. Analysts said the money may have disappeared because some of the companies raising funds via ICO simply walked away with the money or failed to deliver on the promises of their technologies and solutions.

19 million | Number of invoices processed every year, according to the U.S. federal government, 12 million of which (40 percent) were received in the form of paper. In its “U.S. Adoption of Electronic Invoicing: Challenges and Opportunities” report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 2016, government officials noted the role eInvoicing plays in the broader effort to improve the U.S. payments system as outlined in its Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System report.

2,000+ | Current quantity of interchange rates in the payments industry. Material changes come quickly in the space, forcing players to think beyond today’s business with priority and focus on alternative payments, bitcoin mining and product differentiation. According to Joe Kaplan, CEO of payments processing firm Paya, market saturation turned the race to onboard merchants into a race to the bottom. Without product differentiation, competition became about price point — specifically, which firm could offer the lowest.