Today In Data: Opioid Addiction, Same Day ACH And Women Shoppers

Today, in PYMNTS’ data, major retailers are implementing stricter return policies to help fight drug addiction, loan firms are using venture capital (VC) funding to better serve consumers, Same Day ACH was a huge hit for consumer-to-business (C2B) clients, women are dominating the holiday shopping season and paper checks are still around — despite ongoing efforts to #KillTheCheck.

Here are the numbers:

$9 billion | Total lost at major retailers like Target, Home Depot, Walmart and Lowe’s, among other well-known sellers, to scammers beating the gift card system. Stores are introducing stricter return, store credit and gift card policies as those suffering from drug habits and opioid addiction are stealing items from the retailers, then returning them for gift cards that can be traded for drugs.

$200 million | Amount instant loan firm Affirm raised in a Series E VC funding round, according to Monday (Dec. 11) reports. Fresh off that funding round, the firm’s CEO, Max Levchin, cautioned PYMNTS’ Karen Webster against thinking the money is simply a validation for the company, as tougher, bigger challenges lie ahead. The firm has raised roughly $450 million to date.

2 million | Number of Same Day ACH transactions made in the first 11 days of Same Day ACH’s availability, according to NACHA’s statistics. Those statistics also stated more than 178,000 Same Day ACH transactions were made per day, accounting for a total of approximately $1.5 billion in funds and averaging about $650 per transaction — all driven by C2B transfers, which made up 94 percent of the activity.

75 percent | Percentage of a family’s holiday shopping that women will handle during the holiday shopping season, per holiday shopping trends reported by Mastercard’s group head of Market Insights, Sarah Quinlan. Men will pick up the remaining 25 percent at the last possible minute, which means either the Saturday before Christmas or Christmas Eve itself, this year.

1 percent | Rise in the number of paper checks since 2013, according to the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), which released its 2016 Electronic Payments Survey earlier this year. The report found that use of paper checks in B2B payments actually rose 1 percent compared to 2013, and that approximately 44 percent of payments received are in the form of a paper check.