Page 16 - GS180202

IndustryUpdate
Yes Lifecycle finds mobile closes gap on desktop
For its Email Benchmark Report: A Marketer's Guide
to 2018, Yes Lifecycle Marketing analyzed almost 9
billion emails sent in the fourth quarter of 2017 and
over 30 billion sent in 2017 via its Yesmail360i plat-
form. Researchers found that in 2017 smartphone
orders accounted for 46 percent of all email-driven
orders, representing a year-over-year increase of 33
percent. During the same period, tablet and desktop
orders saw declines of 14 percent and 18 percent,
respectively. Triggered emails, which are automated
emails triggered by specific events, such as an action
taken by a website visitor, generated more than double
the open rate, triple the unique click rate, and almost
double the click-to-open rate of standard emails; yet
triggered messages made up only 2 percent of email
volume in 2017.
PARTNERSHIPS
Adyen to help eBay intermediate payments
San Jose,Calif.-based eBay Inc. agreed with Adyen
BV, a global payment technology provider headquar-
tered in Amsterdam, to designate Adyen its primary
payment processing partner. The move is designed to
enable eBay to intermediate payments on its Market-
place platform, which eBay expects will allow it to
manage the payments flow and simplify the end-to-
end experience for buyers and sellers. The transition
to full payments intermediation is expected to take
place over the next three years under the parameters of
eBay's Operating Agreement with PayPal, which will
be in place through mid-2020. Long-time partner and
former eBay company PayPal will remain a payment
option at checkout.
Sterling, Osprey team for EMV
Payment processing provider Sterling Payment Tech-
nologies, a division of EVO Payments International,
partnered with POS software developer Osprey Retail
Systems Inc. to offer a semi-integrated EMV (Europay,
Mastercard and Visa) payment solution to retailers in
niche markets, including liquor and wine, pets, and
specialty grocers. Using both Datacap NETePay and
Ingenico's Telium payment terminals, the joint EMV
16
solution provides multi-layered security with point-to-
point encryption, thereby reducing a merchant's PCI
compliance scope, the partners stated.
Xero, Stripe facilitate ACH payment
Business accounting platform Xero and ecommerce
payment processor Stripe expanded their partnership
to enable Xero customers to accept automated clearing
house (ACH) payments with Stripe. With the avail-
ability of ACH payments, which are efficient but tra-
ditionally cumbersome to set up, Xero's more than 1.2
million subscribers have yet another way to get paid
quickly, safely and securely, the companies stated.
"Our ultimate goal at Xero is to make sure small busi-
nesses are getting paid as quickly as possible, while
making the experience from set up to reconciliation
seamless," said Craig Walker, Chief Technology Of-
ficer at Xero. "[T]his new feature gives our customers
even more ways to get paid efficiently while keeping
sensitive information safe."
ACQUISITIONS
Alibaba to acquire equity in Ant Financial
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Ant Small and Micro
Financial Services Group Co. Ltd. stated that Alibaba
will acquire a 33 percent equity interest in Ant Finan-
cial. The parties have agreed to certain amendments
to their 2014 transaction agreements to facilitate the
transaction. Alibaba will acquire newly issued equity
from Ant in exchange for certain intellectual property
rights owned by Alibaba exclusively related to Ant
Financial. There will be no cash impact to Alibaba fol-
lowing completion of the transaction, Alibaba noted.
Payroc purchases Integrity Payment Systems
Merchant services and payments organization Payroc
LLC acquired Integrity Payment Systems LLC, a full-
service processor and acquirer. The combined Chica-
goland companies have more than 27,000 merchants
and over $8.2 billion in annual core merchant process-
ing volume, Payroc noted, adding that Payroc and
Integrity are expanding their member bank sponsor re-
lationships with the addition of Chicago-headquartered
MB Financial Bank N.A. Payroc has registered to
become an ISO with MB Financial, and Integrity has