Billions of dollars in cross-border B2B trade are tied up not in ships or warehouses, but in the lag between sending an invoice and getting paid.
That lag, known in finance and treasury circles as “time to cash,” has become one of the most consequential benchmarks for companies trying to scale across borders. The longer it takes to collect, the more liquidity is locked up, preventing businesses from reinvesting in inventory, hiring or market expansion.
But these delays, driven by outdated systems, compliance bottlenecks and fragmented banking rails, don’t have to be the hidden cost of global growth.
Leading the charge in rewriting the rules of global growth and cross-border time to cash are three interwoven operational imperatives: accelerating speed and visibility of transactions; harnessing digital and programmable currencies; and closing the trust gap in a fragmented regulatory landscape.
See also: Trade Finance Automation Looks to Recode Supply Chain Payments
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The Old Rails and Their Hidden Costs
At the heart of the problem lies a payments infrastructure designed for a slower, more fragmented era. Traditional correspondent banking, where money moves through a chain of intermediary banks before arriving at the final destination, remains a widely used method for cross-border B2B transactions. Each hop introduces fees, compliance checks and settlement delays. For many companies, especially those dealing with emerging markets, receiving payment can take 30, 60 or even 90 days.
The irony is that while goods can circle the world in under two weeks thanks to modern logistics, the money that pays for them often crawls through systems architected decades ago. In the digital age, where capital efficiency is prized as highly as speed to market, this mismatch is becoming untenable.
These delays don’t just frustrate chief financial officers; they reshape business decisions. A supplier waiting on cash from overseas buyers may need to finance operations through expensive credit lines. Exporters might hesitate to expand into new geographies if it means tying up capital in slow-moving receivables. The friction distorts pricing, encourages conservative growth strategies, and can even exclude small firms from participating in global trade altogether.
“The reality is that the world is moving way faster than most companies can keep up pace with,” Wendy Tapia, head of product, receivables at FIS, told PYMNTS Wednesday (Sept. 10). “Because of legacy systems, there are still a lot of organizations that are stuck in heavily manual processes, very fragmented systems. Without realizing it, they are limiting their agility and ability to scale.”
“When you have a unified cash view, now you have alignment with your procurement team, with the operations team, with treasury,” Tapia added. “Everyone is looking at the same cash reference. And when you have that level of clarity, your CFO can confidently start funding growth initiatives, whether that’s R&D, acquisitions, expansion.”
Another drag on time to cash is compliance. As regulators ramp up efforts to curb money laundering, fraud and sanctions evasion, cross-border payments are subject to increasingly stringent know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols. These checks are essential for financial integrity, but the processes are often manual, duplicative and opaque.
The compliance burden can disproportionately affect small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which lack the dedicated treasury teams of multinationals.
Read also: Trust Is Key for Banks as Cross-Border Trade Grows Turbulent
Toward a New Cross-Border Benchmark
If money is the lifeblood of global trade, data is the circulatory system making it flow more intelligently.
“One thing that all treasury organizations are looking for is visibility into their global activity,” Sebastian Sintes, director of transactional FX at Bank of America, told PYMNTS Monday (Sept. 8).
“For the corporate organizations that have been making some heavy investments into their system infrastructure, that return on that investment is going to start to be felt in the upcoming years…,” he added.
Companies are beginning to benchmark international expansion not just on projected revenues but on cash conversion cycles. A market that generates high sales but locks up capital for 90 days may ultimately be less attractive than one with lower volume but faster settlement. This recalibration is forcing executives to reconsider their geographic footprints and partnership models.
Cross-border B2B commerce will always involve complexity. However, in an era where speed and efficiency define competitive advantage, the companies that master time to cash won’t just move money faster but could rewrite the rules of global growth.
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