10 takeouts from Stripe’s World Tour landing in Sydney

This year marks a decade of Stripe in Australia.

The US global payments behemoth founded 14 years ago by Irish-American siblings John and Patrick Collison now services over 500,000 Australian businesses and has processed more than A$200 billion since landing here

The Stripe World Tour rolled into Sydney recently to showcase the fintech’s products and users, and including a fascinating chat with Canva cofounder Cameron Adams .

Here are 10 takeaways from the event.

1. In 2014 eCommerce was 6% of Australian retail sales

These days it’s at 17%, and it’s obviously not slowing down.

According to Stripe CEO Patrick Collison who opened the event, Australia’s internet economy has significant room to grow – the next decade looks particularly promising, spearheaded by digital natives that comprise more than half of the Australian population.

2. Cash is (obviously) on the way down

Research commissioned by Stripe in Australia found that nearly 6 in 10 Gen Z respondents say they won’t be using cash in 10 years. Instead, they expect to be fully reliant on digital payment solutions such as smartphones/digital wallets (67%), biometrics (20%), and wearables (20%).

3. 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned

This insight came from Zip founder Larry Diamond, who joined the closing panel to share insights into the future of payments. And the number 1 reason for abandoned carts? Not having the customer’s preferred payment method. The lesson is that businesses looking to thrive need to adapt to the payment preferences and expectations of this generation.

4. Getting paid is easier and faster

Amongst the array of product announcements were the support for PayTo, as well as Instant Payouts for all businesses of up to $9,999 AUD, any time, any day of the week. Marketplaces on Stripe can implement this to also provide instant payouts to their customers. With cash flow consistently the biggest issue for businesses in Australia, this can be a lifesaver.

5. Machine Learning can get you 7% more sales

During Head of Information Emily Sands’ presentation, she dropped a fun fact that Stripe is using machine learning to provide automated recommendations payment options to customers at checkout. Based on millions of MML payment data, they see a 7% increase in sales when it’s implemented.

6. And get another 17% with adaptive pricing

Going further down the automation path, if you’re selling globally then switching on automatic price conversions into local currencies sees a 17% uplift in sales.

7. Stripe’s now the world’s largest billing provider

Beyond online payments, a lesser known fact is 300,000 businesses worldwide use the platform for their customer billing, from pay-per-seat to metered models to subscriptions and anything in between.

8. Why Australia’s a bloody good place to build a startup

One of the headline acts of the event was a chat between the Stripe CEO and Canva cofounder Cameron Adams. The convo was exactly what you’d expect from two high-performing minds at the helms of unicorn companies – a fascinating and at time hilarious discussion that went had more detours and tangents than Sydney’s CBD.

At one point Collison asked Adams what was in the water down here, for a country of our size to produce so many global tech companies. Adams responded that because of our small size we are forced to build product and businesses for the world, not just for our own country. Having the global mindset from day one gives us a huge head start.

9. The unexpected benefits to being international

One of the most interesting titbits from Adams came when discussing the evolution of their team. While half of Canva’s employees are still in Australia, they recognised an opportunity to build a team in the Philippines early in their journey. This started with just a single freelancer based there who they loved working with. That led to recognising the great creative talent in the Philippines and building workforce that’s now over 900-strong.

But what they didn’t anticipate was how having a workforce in the Philippines would translate into customers. The Philippines is now Canva’s 5^th largest market in terms of customers, which has been driven by their team getting involved in the local business community, running events, and advocating for the business.  

“We now have an amazing team of leaders there… who have really made Canva Philippines its own thing. It has its own life, its own culture, it’s very localised, and out of that, we’ve actually been able to drive incredible growth in Canva.”

10. Every 20 ChatGPT prompts need 500ml of water

It wouldn’t be a tech event without discussion turning to AI. And during a fascinating closing panel that featured Atlassian futurist Dominic Price, Zip co-founder Larry Diamond, and ANU Vice Chancellor Genevieve Bell, key points danced around the double-edged sword of its risks and benefits, from the incredible legacy Australia has as a leader in AI led by our banks and mining companies to the downside of doing AI for the sake of AI.

But one point from Genevieve Bell stunned the crowd – new research that shows every 20 ChatGPT prompts use half a litre of water.

That’s based on the incredible of amount of data travelling incredible distances to server farms in Ohio that are buzzing away with more and more ferocity every day.

It’s anyone’s guess what sort of updates and insights we’ll be getting at their 20th anniversary.