Today In Data: Business Travel Spend, Digital IDs And AI-Powered Banking

Today in PYMNTS data, businesses spend trillions on travel without knowing where the money goes, Nigeria’s digital identity program will cost millions more than expected and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots are changing how consumers interact with banks. In addition, auto leasing transactions are getting a modern facelift, and gig workers are looking for better payment options.

Here are the numbers:

$1.15 trillion | Amount businesses spent on travel in 2016, but these firms are not always able to see where those dollars are going. That presents problems for spend management, according to research from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Foundation, which found last year that non-corporate payment methods like cash and personal cards are limiting businesses’ access to transparency in travel spend.

$1.3 billion | Additional cost of Nigeria’s efforts to upgrade its identity management infrastructure program as part of an effort to both promote economic development and improve security, according to the country’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

100,000 | Number of NatWest banking conversations held a month by chatbot Cora, an AI-powered offering that can handle 200 basic banking queries. The goal of the NatWest-Cora partnership is to both allow Cora to transfer basic banking skills into face-to-face personal interactions and to expand the universe of what she can do in cooperation with customers as “they get to know each other better.”

80 percent | Percentage of automobile leasing transactions that occur at car dealerships. As with most things that happen at such establishments, though, the process includes its share of friction, despair and disappointment, and 70 percent of millennials downright hate dealing with it. According to the latest trends report from Edmunds, auto leasing has enjoyed a huge spike in popularity over the last six or seven years, with a record 4.2 million cars, trucks and SUVs under lease agreements by the end of 2016.

44 percent | Portion of gig workers who get paid through the same platform that brings gig work buyers and sellers together. That might seem like a low number, and perhaps an odd bit of friction. “A lot of these platforms, when they first begin, their primary goal is really to match people together … they’re really trying to match up the companies that need these workers with the people that can perform the work,” according to Michael Ting, Hyperwallet SVP of Digital Markets.