Bottomline Technologies has closed a $15 million cash deal to acquire Bora Payment Systems, the company announced in a press release Tuesday (Nov. 9).
The deal is part of a move to use straight-through processing (STP) for improved efficiency when accepting virtual cards to vendors using Bottomline’s Paymode-X electronic payment network.
“For more and more customers and channel partners, the ultimate digital transformation of payables requires a comprehensive strategy for all payments — domestic, international, B2B and B2C,” Tom Dolan, general manager, Paymode-X, Bottomline, said in the release.
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Dolan added that card payments can often be “inefficient and cumbersome” but with STP, the manual processes that come with virtual cards are eliminated. STP capabilities also lessen the “invoice-to-cash cycle and optimize acceptance economics.”
As a result, payers can offer suppliers a wider variety of payment options that “offer great efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” Dolan said.
Read more: B2B Payments Are No Longer ‘Business as Usual’
Most virtual card payments are manually processed and sent via an encrypted email server or by accessing a secure portal, a task that can be costly and time-consuming, especially as virtual card volumes increase. Virtual card payments processed using STP are sent directly to the vendor’s bank account, and aside from being faster, STP also captures remittance data.
With the Bora acquisition, Bottomline can offer new bank channel relationships and capabilities to Paymode-X that will upgrade its virtual card program.
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