Access PaySuite says UK SMEs are losing an average £159,500 a year through failed payments, abandoned checkouts, and payment-related customer churn, as finance teams struggle to identify where revenue leakage is happening. New independent research commissioned by the company and based on a survey of 250 UK SME decision-makers found that payment friction is creating a sizeable operational and financial drag across the market.
According to the research, 3.4% of all payment transactions fail on average, and 55.8% of those failures are never recovered. Nearly half of respondents said they had lost customers because of checkout abandonment, while more than a quarter said customers had switched to competitors as a result of payment friction. Almost one in 10 businesses reported losing more than £1m each year because of payment-related issues, yet fewer than four in 10 said they had full visibility into the broader revenue impact.
The operational burden is significant as well. More than 70% of respondents said they spend between five and 20 hours a week dealing with payment failures and the administration that follows. Access PaySuite said many finance teams still have to export spreadsheets, interrogate fragmented data sets, and piece together insight across separate systems rather than working from a single picture of payment performance.
That visibility gap appears to be shaping demand for automation. The company said 95% of businesses are either evaluating, planning to implement, or interested in AI-driven systems to reduce payment-related revenue leakage. Jon Reynolds, Head of Product at Access PaySuite, said: “Businesses are leaking revenue at a scale many don’t fully appreciate. When more than half of failed transactions are never recovered, the cumulative financial impact quickly becomes significant.” He added: “The bigger issue is visibility, since many finance teams simply don’t have a clear, consolidated view of where and why revenue is being lost.”
In response, Access PaySuite has launched what it describes as a unified AI embedded payments platform designed to give businesses a clearer view of payment performance and revenue risk. The company said the system is intended to cut through raw data, support multiple payment methods in one environment, and help teams act before losses escalate.
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