Stripe processed record $18.6bn over Black Friday weekend

29 Nov 2023

From left: Patrick and John Collison. Image: Stripe

Using a tracker to measure Black Friday metrics over the weekend, the fintech giant said it handled a peak volume of more than 93,000 transactions per minute.

Stripe just had its busiest four-day period ever over the Black Friday weekend with the fintech giant claiming it processed more than 300m transactions.

The value of these transactions between Black Friday (24 November) and Cyber Monday (27 November) stood at $18.6bn, based on data accumulated by a tracker Stripe had in place over the weekend to measure metrics in real time.

Black Friday traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in some Western countries and falls on the first Friday after Thanksgiving in the US, when businesses of all sizes offer discounts on many of their products.

Stripe said that it handled a peak volume of more than 93,000 transactions per minute for the many big players in its clientele, including Amazon, Shopify, Lightspeed and Squarespace.

The Irish-founded fintech also noted that it processed more than $1bn each in non-US dollar currencies, including the Euro and Pound Sterling as well as Canadian and Australian dollars, with purchases made through its payments service in 185 countries.

“As our customers respond to the surge in consumer demand, we’re fixated on continuously improving reliability,” said David Singleton, chief technology officer at Stripe.

“Peak days like Black Friday give us a glimpse into what an average day on Stripe will look like soon. Stripe is already prepared to handle the much larger volumes our customers will need from us as their businesses grow.”

An annual letter from the Collison brothers – who founded Stripe in 2010 – earlier this year revealed that Stripe processed more than $817bn in global transactions last year – a growth of 26pc over 2021.

In Ireland, Stripe only had a few hundred businesses on its payments platform when it launched here in 2013. Today, the company says tens of thousands of ventures use its tech as online economic activity continues to grow.

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary in Ireland recently, Stripe revealed that it has processed more than €20bn in payments in the country since it started operations.

Some of Stripe’s big Irish clients have included unicorn Wayflyer, Glofox (which was acquired by a US tech group last year), Irish Life, Smyths Toys and the Gaelic Athletic Association.

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Vish Gain is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com