Introducing “Black Boxes and Paradoxes: The Real Cost of Disconnected Payments”

Today, I am excited to share our newest Checkout.com insights and research report, Black Boxes and Paradoxes: The Real Cost of Disconnected Payments.

The report, which was developed in partnership with economists at Oxford Economics, surveys 5,000 consumers and 1,500 merchants from the US, UK, Germany and France. We were also joined by payment leaders from the likes of Deliveroo, Microsoft, and Uber to highlight real-world learnings from the most progressive companies.

The goal is to shine a light on the biggest untapped payments opportunities for companies today. In the research, our team explores the true cost of siloed and disconnected payments. We look at what customers will pay for better transactions and we deep dive into how fast-growing brands approach payments. We also discuss how great, agile payments underpin some of the world’s most innovative merchants across all imaginable verticals.

At Checkout.com, our mission is to empower our merchants by reimagining a world of truly connected finance. To do this, we set out to make payments seamless. We’ve spent years building the best technology. Now, we’re working to help merchants drive even more value out of their payments through what we call connected payments.  

We know that payments are ever-evolving. We know the wants of customers are always growing and pivoting. We know that the pace of change to which merchants need to respond is only getting faster.

As I write in my introduction to the report, payments have become the merchant’s lifeblood --  passing immense value throughout the business and unlocking innovation faster than we have ever seen before.

Even with all of the evolution within the payments industry, there is still more value to be unleashed.

The findings in this report give us the tools to quantify ‘optimization’ and to gain a better grasp of the untapped value still tied up in payments. We ask ourselves, what will it take for payments to make their next giant leap forward?

We uncover findings that affirm our hunches and others which are both paradoxical and surprising. Ultimately, these findings give us a deeper, even more nuanced, understanding of the lay of the land for merchants.

That is critically important because it gives us visibility on the complex, shifting nature of that landscape and moreover allows us to crystallize the vision for what the future needs to look like: What exactly it is we need to deliver so as to empower every merchant --  each on their own journey to grow, to deliver and to revolutionize their markets.  

I hope you find the learnings uncovered as valuable as we do.

Explore the findings in our new report Black Boxes and Paradoxes: The Costs of Disconnected Payments