Innovation is a key component of any business’s ability to succeed over the long run.
And so are their payment methods and payment processes. That’s why, within the B2B payments environment, creativity plays a vital role in enabling businesses to optimize processes, lower costs, mitigate risks, and enhance the overall performance and effectiveness of their payment operations.
We can anticipate that as technology develops, fresh innovations will transform the way B2B payments are made, thereby boosting global business.
That’s why PYMNTS continues to monitor the latest developments shaping the B2B environment.
The main themes that were raised this week were those that concerned how the incentives for switching to digital B2B payments are changing, specifically with buyers and suppliers using virtual cards.
This week also revealed that businesses are increasingly using automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to perform accounting tasks that people no longer want to do, and also highlighted a new crop of innovative solutions designed to simplify business operations.
The Winning Calculus Around Going Digital
In the new PYMNTS book, “The Implications of Uncertainty,” NCR Voyix Chief Product Officer, Digital Banking Doug Brown stated that financial institutions have a unique chance to boost the resilience of small businesses by providing customized fiscal tools and support.
And as the rumbling of announcements this year demonstrated, small businesses are being honored with a set of fresh digital solutions.
Decipher Credit, a loan origination service, and small business financial data provider Validis collaborated on Monday (April 22). Commercial lenders will be able to extract financial and accounts receivable data in real-time thanks to the partnership, which will enable small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to transition from “application to automated spreading” in a matter of seconds.
Coupa, a business that increases margins, has partnered with firm payments company Bottomline. The partnership, announced Monday, is designed to reduce online payment processes for businesses.
Marqeta, a card issuing company, and electric bank OakNorth teamed up on April 24 to provide small businesses with business cards.
Even on Wednesday, PYMNTS sat down with Shilpa Dhar, senior vice president and general manager of business at HubSpot, to talk about HubSpot’s new collaboration with Stripe focused on optimizing digital payments for small companies.
And according to a recent panel discussion of industry heavyweights that featured Robin Boudsocq, head of B2B Commercial Cards at Citi, Jennifer Petty, global card and comprehensive payables executive at Bank of America, Chad Wallace, executive vice president of B2B Solutions at Mastercard, and Paul Christensen, founder and CEO of Previse, virtual cards are emerging as a source of payment certainty — for both buyers and suppliers.
“There are trillions of dollars that are going to move to virtual cards in the next two, three, four, five years,” the panelists said.
The widespread use of electronic payments has altered the financial landscape, with many industries gradually embracing cash as the currency.
“The B2B realm is where the big pockets still exist, typically. … But I don’t think it’s a hard sell to anybody at this point, the benefits of going electronic,” Jim McCarthy, CEO at Thredd, told PYMNTS on Thursday.
Automating Away the Growing Account Shortage
Observers believe that Generation Z’s accounting ambitions are being undermined by the time and effort required to pass the CPA exam, in addition to a relatively stagnant level of income growth for entry-level positions, especially given the starting pay for Wall Street and Silicon Valley positions.
Over 720 businesses in 2023 alone cited insufficient staffing levels across important financial and accounting departments and warned that the lack of assistance could lead to errors in their reporting.
And the situation is even worse for smaller companies, where every finance team experiences a sharper accounting loss.
That’s why PYMNTS reported on how, as the reality of scarce labor resources settles in for firms’ accounting departments, a surprising solution could be on the horizon: embracing automation and investing in innovation, including AI.
But the marketplace is already responding with new innovations. Accounting, human resources, and finance firm Countsy unveiled an online platform on Tuesday (April 23), making it easier to manage back-office tasks by putting together a central repository for all necessary business tools and team collaboration.
And a day earlier, on Monday, Microsoft and Cognizant announced a new partnership to expand the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) solutions by enterprises.
Jumping With Two Feet Into the Digital B2B Space
Customers in the FinTech sector no longer ask for only ways to accept online payments. Nowadays, they want “software-defined financial services”.
That’s according to Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, who made the remarks during an opening keynote of the company’s annual user conference on Wednesday in San Francisco.
Those services could even be coming to the metaverse.
On Monday, Meta announced that it would be allowing third-party hardware makers to use the operating system Horizon OS. The system powers the company’s Meta Quest metaverse headsets. A partnership with Lenovo, which is part of the move, is planned to increase enterprise productivity in the metaverse.
As businesses around the world begin to explore the potentials provided by Horizon OS and the broader mixed reality (MR) landscape, PYMNTS unpacked how this is likely to change the way work is done significantly. Just a few examples of how mixed reality can revolutionize enterprise productivity include: the ability to seamlessly blend physical and digital workspaces, enhance collaboration among remote teams, and visualize complex data in intuitive ways.
Miscellaneous Market Moves
On Sunday (April 24), instant money movement platform TabaPay announced its acquisition Synapse’s assets following the latter company’s bankruptcy.
On Tuesday, Standard Chartered partnered with Visa to facilitate cross-border B2B payments for the bank’s corporate clients, while cross-border payments platform Nium and payments processor Thredd have expanded their partnership, allowing Nium to issue virtual cards in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
The social economy platform’s announcement on Wednesday came at the same time that Uber for Business created a new tool to make corporate travel arrangements simpler for executive assistants.
