The Race to Become the Next Stripe, PayPal or Square Heats Up
Upstarts with names like Bolt, Toast and Due are muscling into the payments market and could become acquisition targets.
For several years, PayPal, Square, Adyen and Stripe have dominated the lucrative payments market. Now hundreds of upstarts with names like Bolt, Toast and Due are muscling into the market with their own twist on facilitating commerce between merchants and shoppers.
Four years ago, the Big Four controlled 90 percent of the payments market, says Richard Crone, chief executive officer of Crone Consulting, but their share has slipped to 80 percent recently. The incumbents still generate about 54 percent of the more than $1.3 trillion in gross payment volume globally (excluding Alipay and WeChat Pay in China) and new entrants have grabbed the rest, Crone says.