Building Better (And Faster) B2B Payments

For businesses, slow payments are more than a simple headache. When payments are not delivered on time, they can harm a company’s finances and can put a strain on business relationships.

Given the stakes, it’s little wonder why real-time disbursements technology is gaining popularity in the B2B payments space. A recent data indicates many in the financial services industry expect the technology to become even more essential in the near future.

According to a recent survey of 390 industry professionals, 42 percent cited real-time capabilities and their online banking interface integrations as the most impactful B2B payments innovations the industry will experience over the next three to five years. In fact, they reported seeing greater potential in real-time payments than investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which, at 20 percent, brought in the second-most votes. Blockchain attracted just 11 percent, and biometrics-based security earned 4 percent of the votes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, players around the space are now looking to use the tech to offer new and more efficient B2B payments offerings.

Ingo Money, for example, recently announced it would work with KeyBank to offer KeyBank clients increased access to real-time disbursement services. The move is aimed at providing end users with more options for receiving payments, including Ingo Money’s instant money services, which enable the bank and its clients to deliver funds to more than 4.5 billion debit, credit, prepaid and online wallet accounts, along with cash-out locations.

PNC Treasury Management is also looking to accelerate corporate payments.

The company announced it linked its corporate customers to real-time payment capabilities as of late last month, meaning these clients can now originate real-time transactions to corporate or consumer receivers via the bank’s PINACLE online and mobile banking portal. According to a press release, users can also make payments 24/7/365 via file transmission and an application program interface (API), and the funds become available to receivers within seconds.

Of course, several challenges still stand in the way of real-time payment adoption. Many organizations and companies struggle to keep up with the pace of innovation, for example, and legacy infrastructure integrations can complicate the onboarding process for companies large and small.

Despite these difficulties, demand for real-time payments remain on the rise, and it may not be long before the delays in B2B payments are a thing of the past. Learn more about it here.