Bottomline has recently been courted by private equity firms, the sources said. The company hasn’t made any financial decisions about its future and could still remain independent after exploring its options.

Bottomline added three new board members in October as part of an agreement with shareholders Clearfield Capital Management and Sachem Head Capital Management, and formed a committee to evaluate and make recommendations on its market position and strategy.

Related news: Bottomline Snaps up Bora Payments to Drive STP for Paymode-X

In November, Bottomline closed a $15 million cash deal to acquire Bora Payment Systems, part of the company’s move to use straight-through processing (STP) for improved efficiency when accepting virtual cards for vendors using Bottomline’s Paymode-X electronic payment network.

Most virtual card payments are manually processed and sent across an encrypted email server or by accessing a secure portal. Virtual card payments processed using STP are sent to the vendor’s bank account. STP also captures remittance data.

Since acquiring Bora, Bottomline has offered new bank channel relationships and capabilities to Paymode-X that will upgrade its virtual card program.

Also see: Bottomline Unveils Bank Payments Tracking Service via Swift API

In August, Bottomline announced a new application programming interface (API)-based payments tracking service that will integrate SWIFT gpi data, which is captured on behalf of Bottomline clients and integrated into their payments workflow to simplify the API access points.

The service pairs Bottomline with SWIFT’s Platform Partnership Program, which enables third-party providers to offer API connectivity benefits to their banking customers.

In August, Bottomline debuted its Watchlist Screening program, which aims to limit false positives. The software can be integrated with other payments tools and can also screen transactions against official sanction lists, which are published by international regulatory bodies.

Copley Equity Partners, which focuses on lower middle-market companies with strong growth opportunities, backed Spend Matters in part due to its ability to affect purchasing decisions at multiple levels and markets, as well as its ability to optimize the strategic technology procurement decisions across the global procurement, finance and supply chain technology ecosystem.

See also: Widening Procurement’s Scope Of Vendor Risk Management

“Copley Equity Partners’ investment in Spend Matters sets the stage for our next phase of growth by allowing us to scale within procurement while expanding into adjacent technology markets,” said Spend Matters founder and CEO Jason Busch.

“Copley’s resources and expertise will allow us to market and deploy our proprietary data platform into an array of technology markets, including accounts payable, B2B payments, supply chain analytics, ESG and CSR,” Busch added.

Spend Matters uses a data-driven approach to analyzing technology and solutions. It pioneered SolutionMap, a “technology benchmarking methodology based equally on granular analyst technology assessments and customer reference inputs.”

Read more: Reducing Supply Chain ‘Fragmentation’ Helps Businesses Battle Payments Fraud

TechMatch, launched earlier this year, is the only software-as-a-service (SaaS) application in the market that coordinates business requirements and technology vendor capability. It is used by Fortune 500 and Global 2000 firms, public sector organizations and global consultancies.

The solution drives technology decision making for procurement, accounts payable, contract management and more, according to the release.

“Procurement technology has rapidly become a dominant area of SaaS investment for organizations of all sizes. Supply chain challenges, commodity inflation and price volatility continue to elevate procurement into the boardroom and headlines,” says Peter Trovato, co-founder and managing director at Copley Equity Partners.

Trovato added that Spend Matters is a market leader that is “disrupting the existing analyst and market intelligence ecosystem” with its one-of-a-kind “data-driven, tech-enabled approach to analyzing technology.”

Considering the cost of paper-based invoices in terms of both dollars and time, and the fact that they are one of the top sources of friction for businesses’ AP processes, it’s understandable that reducing the time and expenses that go into processing invoices is a top goal for companies.

In fact, 53% of companies plan to automate their invoice delivery processes, according to the Next-Gen Digital Payments Report, a PYMNTS and Transcard collaboration.

Get the report: Next-Gen Digital Payments Report

Centralizing Previously Siloed Payment Methods and Data 

“The move to electronic payments was supposed to make it easier to disburse and collect funds, yet PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that roughly one-fifth of an AP or AR professional’s day is wasted on manual keying, paper shuffling and other tasks that could be automated or eliminated,” Transcard CEO Greg Bloh told PYMNTS. “Electronic payments have done their part. Transactions flow faster and with more data than ever.”

Interest in solutions like enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that enable companies to centralize previously siloed payment methods and related data in one place for easy access is also growing. Leveraging these systems to aggregate financial processes can help companies more transparently track their incoming and outgoing transactions and allow them to flexibly respond to client’s and suppliers’ needs.

“The blame for friction in the commerce lifecycle rests with the lack of integration between electronic payment systems and legacy ERPs,” Bloh said. “No matter how much money businesses, banks and FinTechs invest in their payments systems, they will never escape inefficiencies, complexity and risk in their AP and AR processes without integration.”

Fulfilling the Promise of Electronic Payments 

Businesses are beginning to consider ERP systems necessary tools for smooth daily operations, as 44% of supply chain decision-makers state that their organizations have either incorporated them or are incorporating them. ERP systems connect companies’ previously siloed solutions, and these functionalities make them particularly beneficial to businesses’ financial processes. Using ERP systems to manage AR and AP functions can give businesses greater transparency and enable them to process invoices and client payments more quickly.

Businesses are beginning to realize that it is necessary to overhaul their back-end processes as more firms move their B2B relationships and payments online. Companies that do not make these shifts will fall behind their more tech-savvy competitors as the industry continues to change.

“New technology is fulfilling the promise of electronic payments,” Bloh said. “By integrating with ERPs and bank API layers, these payments solutions enable users to make and receive payments directly from their ERPs while data is reconciled automatically in real time.”

Using Tribal Credit’s new cross-border payment service, Mexican businesses can send B2B payments in pesos to the U.S. and have recipients receive monies in US dollars.

“Our goal is to save time and money for SMBs across LatAm who are sending payments to the U.S., particularly payments that are time-sensitive or require improved traceability,” said Mohamed Elkasstawi, Tribal Credit’s chief strategy officer.

See also: Banks and FinTechs Use APIs to Eliminate Cross-Border Payment Friction

Mexico leads the LatAm’s region $175 billion market opportunity, where 62 million small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) transact annually worldwide.

Tribal Credit offers a faster and more affordable way to handle cross-border payments, which are facilitated by Bitso, the most liquid crypto exchange in the region. The process enables Pesos-to-Stellar-USDC conversion.

“Bitso and Tribal Credit share a common mission of providing top-tier financial services to SMBs across Latin America,” said Carlos Cota, product manager at Bitso. “Our hand in providing rails for moving funds from Mexican to U.S. businesses reflects our belief in the potential for cryptocurrency to revolutionize payment transactions in a global digital economy.”

Read more: FinTechs Offer LATAM SMBs Speedy Access to Credit in Emerging Markets

Tribal’s cross-border payments tap the open-source decentralized Stellar network for financial products and services. Stellar supports cross-currency transactions and digital asset issuance, according to the release.

“With Tribal Credit’s new cross-border payment service, we’re leveraging blockchain technology and cryptocurrency for backend design to dramatically improve front-end user experience,” said Arvind Nimbalker, global head of product at Tribal Credit. “Businesses can enjoy all the benefits of blockchain technology without needing to become experts in the space.”

The company announced the merger on its website Friday (Dec. 10), saying it had entered into an agreement with North Mountain Merger Corp. 

Founded in 1996, Corcentric provides Source-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash solutions and a B2B payments network. Comprising more than 450,000 buyers and 1.4 million suppliers, the firm processes more than $100 billion in transaction volume every year. 

The transaction has been approved by Corcentric and North Mountain’s boards and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, pending the approval of stockholders and regulators. 

Corcentric said the deal is expected to generate up $182 million in gross proceeds, including a $50 million PIPE from investors, which include Wellington Management and Millais Limited.

“We are immensely proud of Corcentric’s accomplishments since our founding 25 years ago, and we are excited to lead the next stage of development alongside the North Mountain team,” said founder and CEO Douglas W. Clark. 

“We believe there is significant runway for growth opportunities within our existing customer base as well as through untapped opportunities such as new customer wins, new product innovation, international expansion, and strategic acquisitions,” he said.

Clark will retain his position following the transaction, as will Chief Operating Officer Matthew Clark, the company said. The leadership team will be rounded out by CFO Thomas Sabol and Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer Mark Joyce. 

Read more: 91% of CFOs Say Digital Business Payments Makes Finance Operations More Efficient 

Based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Corecentric recently collaborated with PYMNTS on the study, “Business Payments Digitization: A Path to a Better Balance Sheet.” 

In this study, chief financial officers from a wide range of organizations reported that their efforts to upgrade back-office functions have yielded numerous benefits, among them healthier balance sheets. An overwhelming 91% executives who responded to the study echoed this sentiment. 

The report also found that nearly three quarters of firms scaled up digital payments as COVID-19 affected their operations over the past year and a half. 

Tribal is launching services in those nations this month and plans to continue that expansion and move into other Latin American countries in 2022. The company has observed that small businesses in the region struggle to get access to credit and payment rails because the market is highly regulated and a handful of banks control most of the relationship.

“So, what we want to do in these Latin American markets is to open up access to credit,” Arvind Nimbalker, global head of product at Tribal Credit, told PYMNTS. “We have a proprietary algorithm which helps us underwrite these companies and give them access to credit, and using that credit, they can use the Tribal platform to make payments to virtually and literally anybody in the world.”

Meeting Local Needs

The Tribal platform allows companies to make payments to employees, suppliers or merchants — online or in-store. It also takes local needs into account. For example, in Mexico, Tribal Credit integrated the platform with the tax authority. Beyond that, the platform provides a one-stop shop where companies can manage their expenses, integrate with their enterprise resource planning systems and move information around.

While it will focus its efforts on Latin American in 2022, Tribal Credit intends to expand globally to other emerging markets later. “We definitely have the skillset to understand local markets and to grow rapidly, not just in [Latin America], but anywhere in the world,” Nimbalker said.

Speeding Up Access to Credit

When it comes to the product, Tribal Credit talks with customers in each local market to understand their needs and then customizes the product with features that meet those needs.

“We make it easy for them to decide whom to pay, when to pay, how to pay and how to manage their expenses,” Nimbalker said. “If we can see from their information that they need access to more credit, then we can grant them those kind of credit and repayment terms.”

Any company that wants to compete and thrive in the global economy needs to be able to get access to finance — and to cash in general — quickly. That gives them the agility and speed they need to compete effectively.

“This is where a company like Tribal can come into play and really speed things up dramatically,” Nimbalker said. “If it normally takes a company a month to get access to credit, with Tribal they would get that access in a day or even less if we have all the information in place and we automatically recommend actions they should be taking.”

Using Innovative Technologies

The company’s entry strategy is corporate cards, providing new customers with a credit card that is powered by Visa and accepted worldwide. Beyond that, Tribal’s value proposition is centered on its international payment network, where it is constantly making advances in using innovative technologies like blockchain and crypto. On Thursday (Dec. 9), the company announced that it has partnered with Stellar, which offers payment rails over blockchain.

“Tribal as a company is very hyper-focused on customer needs in these emerging markets,” Nimbalker said. “We have a track record of really helping our customers in whichever market we have entered. Hopefully, as we expand into Columbia, Peru and Chile, companies will appreciate the fact that we’re really going all out to meet their needs.”

Headed into a new year, Versapay Chief Risk Officer Chris Wassenaar told PYMNTS that with payments becoming increasingly digital, new fraud challenges will arise, especially for B2B small to midsized businesses with 200 or more employees and up to $2 billion in income.

One of the most notable aspects of the rise in digital commerce is that it has expanded the total addressable market for everyone, whether a company is a mom-and-pop shop on the corner or a small enterprise. Now everyone can sell globally, but that world stage opens the door for new avenues of fraudulent activity.

Though B2B suppliers and merchants may have so far been hesitant to introduce additional security measures for fear of negatively impacting the buyer’s experience, Wassenaar said that there is a positive correlation between improved customer experience and heightened payment security. He said that it’s key for B2B sellers to recognize that buyers expect the businesses they work with to protect them in the same way that B2C-focused businesses already operate.

When creating an online presence or accepting payments digitally for the first time, he recommended any business critically examines its vulnerability to payments fraud:

“They have to look at their entire digital ecosystem.” Specifically, he said, enterprises must examine the fragmentation that exists within that ecosystem, which by extension includes a range of third-party service providers. Each company encountered within a given ecosystem, whether with a B2B or B2C focus, may have its own internal information technology infrastructure.

“You may use someone for internet activity and another for your shopping cart, and then even a third party to provide the delivery capabilities or the fulfillment for your orders,” said Wassenaar, “and understanding the full landscape of that ecosystem is important.”

The continued embrace of the remote/hybrid work environment will boost that fragmentation, in turn creating a wealth of security vulnerabilities. Remote employees, he said by way of example, are doing work-related activities on their home internet, while still connecting to larger corporate environments. And they’re continuing to interact with multiple third-parties.

“So, what’s being provided is all these different avenues for fraudsters to get into an ecosystem,” he told PYMNTS. “It only takes one organization within that supply chain, to perhaps not update their security patches for their devices or maybe for their network. And that allows folks an avenue into those businesses.”

Any firm can take a simple test in examining vulnerabilities. All it takes is a whiteboard and a marker to draw a simple diagram of a supply chain and all the different parties within that chain. Seeing the links to third-party providers in that visual representation can pinpoint vulnerabilities in where, when, and how all the stakeholders communicate with one another.

“All of a sudden one might have an ‘aha moment’,” he said, citing as an example the realization that card data can be transferred to other parties, and that a third-party vendor’s employees would have access to personally identifiable information for another firm’s customers.

Connect the dots, and it’s clear how a business’ reputation is dependent on people that are far-flung throughout the digital ecosystem.

Drill down a bit into B2B interactions, and the touch points and vulnerabilities proliferate, all the way across payment gateways and payment processors — both local and foreign, if a supply chain stretches across borders.

In constructing lines of defense, he said, B2B technology is taking a cue from B2C interactions that are part of executives’ personal lives. Two-factor authentication and CAPTCHAs are effective tools to fight fraudsters, he said, particularly against card testing.

“A little bit of friction that tells you, ‘This person on the other end of this transaction actually cares about the security of your credit card data’ can be good” he said. And if biometrics can be introduced to streamline those verification processes, all the better. Adding CAPTCHAs can help defend against card testing fraud, too. Firms like Versapay, he said, with unified payment offerings, are deeply embedded within a client’s ERP solutions. The software can extract and feed the data that exists within those ERPs into Versapay’s cloud-based payment portal, where sellers can manage their accounts receivable and accept digital payments, decreasing the handoffs of data and fragmentation in the supply chain.

No matter the technology deployed, it’s not possible to be perfect in the battle against fraudsters. He did add, however, that, “there are some incredible technologies now, and … things that you can do and be aware of that will minimize your exposure — not eliminate it, but minimize it.”