B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Hokodo has acquired a European payments license.
With the new payments license, the firm can offer a broader suite of payment solutions, providing benefits to both suppliers and buyers, Hokodo said in a Thursday (June 8) press release.
“This is a landmark moment, not just for Hokodo, but for B2B merchants and their customers across Europe,” Hokodo Co-founder and Co-CEO Richard Thornton said in the release. “As a regulated EMI [electronic money institution], our merchant and marketplace partners can have even greater confidence in our ability to manage and protect their funds prudently.”
PYMNTS research has found that corporate clients making purchases from B2B vendors value straightforward, streamlined transactions.
That’s especially true as more companies explore digital purchasing options and begin to appreciate their convenience, as reported in “Next-Gen Digital Payments,” a PYMNTS and Transcard collaboration.
The report also found that sellers looking to serve B2B customers will need to pay attention to the digital checkout experience as more of their sales are taking place via digital channels.
Hokodo’s new license and broader suite of payment solutions will enable merchants, marketplaces and other suppliers to partner with the firm to offer their customers a complete payment solution, including BNPL options, without having to integrate with multiple solution providers, according to the press release.
It will also enable the suppliers’ customers to use their choice of payment methods within a consistent user experience, the release said.
Hokodo currently operates in six of Europe’s largest markets and aims to continue expanding across the continent, per the release.
“Since launching our business in France and the U.K. back in 2018, we’ve always had the largest European footprint among B2B BNPL providers,” Hokodo Co-founder and Co-CEO Louis Carbonnier said in the release. “It’s compelling that we’re now able to help B2B suppliers across the whole of Europe provide their customers with the credit and payment options they deserve.”
Seventy-three percent of B2B buyers today are millennials who prefer to buy online, so suppliers need to deliver the same frictionless and seamless purchasing experiences that these younger consumers are used to, Carbonnnier told PYMNTS in an interview posted in August 2022.
“In their day-to-day purchase from [marketplaces like] Amazon, these [millennials] have a great seamless experience and then they come to the workplace, and they have to procure on email and blue screens,” Carbonnier said. “That [only] makes the disconnect [bigger].”
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