Today in B2B payments, Unilever sees a rise in B2B eCommerce, and a PYMNTS and Corcentric report shows speedy digitization in the finance and healthcare verticals. Plus, Razer Merchant Services teams with Atome for increased BNPL acceptance, Think Big Solutions adds digital factoring platform and B2B payments and invoicing networks help small suppliers grow.
Finance, Healthcare Reap Benefits of Speedy Digitization
Although many already had a robust system in place beforehand, nearly half of the companies in the finance, insurance and healthcare have accelerated the digitization of payment processes and systems during the pandemic.
In fact, 48% of the companies in each of those industries fast-tracked payments digitization to improve balance sheets, according to “Business Payments Digitization,” a PYMNTS and Corcentric collaboration based on a survey of 400 chief financial officers (CFOs) that work at firms with $400 million to $2 billion in annual revenue.
By comparison, only 39% of the CFOs in the travel and transportation industry, 36% in retail trade and 19% of those in industrial and manufacturing report that their companies accelerated the digitization of payment processes and systems.
Tartan Raises $4.5M to Scale Payroll Management Platform
India-based payroll and workforce management startup Tartan has closed a $4.5 million funding round that it plans to use to scale its go-to-market operations, expand its in-house engineering team, double its headcount to 110 and enhance its product offerings, The Economic Times reported Monday (Aug. 1).
Tartan has now raised about $6 million in investment funding since it was founded in June 2021, according to the report. The company provides a white-labeled application programming interface (API) suite for financial institutions (FIs) to access consumers’ payroll data to their verify income and employment status.
Investors leading the most recent funding round included 500 Global (previously 500 Startups), InfoEdge Ventures and Naval Ravikant-backed Quant Fund, according to the report.
Razer Merchant Services Expands BNPL Acceptance With Atome Partnership
Malaysia-based Razer Merchant Services (RMS), the B2B arm of Razer Fintech, is teaming up with Asian buy now, pay later (BNPL) brand Atome to offer flexible deferred payment options during checkout at online and offline merchants, according to a press release.
Starbucks is among the first merchants to implement Atome’s flexible payment approach through the partnership, which was announced Thursday (July 28). Starbucks and other B2C merchants that use BNPL can make their products more attainable to consumers using flexible, deferred payments, the release stated.
BNPL is expected to grow to $33.6 billion in 2027, up from $7.3 billion in 2019 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.2%, according to the release, which cited a Coherent Market Insights report.
RoadSync CEO Says Digital Payments Keep Truckers on the Move
RoadSync, which automates routine expenses for long-haul truck drivers, recently launched a direct payment solution that lessens the burden on the driver by streamlining the transaction between the broker/carrier and the warehouse merchant.
The company has a network of vendors that already use its platform to accept payments, and brokers and carriers ask for ways to make the process easier. With the new direct payment solution, RoadSync plugged its spend management platform to its mobile point of sale platform.
Now, when drivers go into a RoadSync merchant location, they just have to provide their cellphone number — the system will recognize whether they have a preauthorized payment in the system and will let them complete it with a click.
B2B Payments and Invoicing Networks Help Small Suppliers Grow Into Larger Suppliers
B2B suppliers want to serve as many buyers as they can as an increasing amount of commerce moves online. At the same time, these suppliers want assurance they can be paid in a timely fashion.
Brandon Spear, CEO of TreviPay, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in a recent interview that platforms, and directories created from the data moving across those platforms, can create B2B ecosystems and cement trust between firms.
At a high level, different sellers have different needs depending on how large they are, how multinational they are and how global their customer base is. For smaller firms especially, there exists a need to tap working capital and credit in order to buy the inventory and hire the staff that can turn strategy into top line torque. TreviPay has made its mark addressing trade credit through automated payments and invoicing.
Unilever Sees Growth in B2B eCommerce Segment
Unilever has seen eCommerce become a driving force in the second quarter, with that now being 14% of turnover — a rise from 6% from 2019, according to half year results released by Unilever on June 26. This came with growth in both the U.S. and Indian markets, though Chinese sales were affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in that country for the second quarter of 2022.
The company said it had underlying sales growth in the first half of the year of 8.1%. Growth was “broad based” on all divisions, with prices negatively impacting some things. Home care was particularly susceptible to this, as the segment saw rising costs and had a sales growth of 10.7%, with the highest pricing action. Meanwhile, foods and refreshment grew 7.3%, and beauty and personal care grew 7.5%.
FinTech Think Big Solutions Offers TREDX Digital Factoring Platform
Bangladesh-based FinTech Think Big Solutions now offers a digital factoring platform to provide financing solutions for smaller businesses, a news report said Sunday (July 31).
TREDX aims to unite small businesses, financial institutions (FIs), corporations and suppliers to create an online marketplace, TREDXonline, for digital invoices. TREDX will facilitate digital factoring, that is, real-time transactions selling approved invoices from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to FIs at a discount.
According to M Masrur Reaz, managing director for Think Big, SMEs make up around a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product. But a large number of them have limited access to formal finance. Reaz said the idea was to make more access to credit, as many don’t have very much collateral, but also have working capital tied up in invoices payable by larger corporations.
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