This Week in B2B: Capturing the Digital Innovations Reshaping Workflows

In the B2B landscape, the only constant is change — and technology is the change agent.

After all, while trust remains foundational in B2B relationships, it is technology that is increasingly accelerating processes and unlocking new, 21st century efficiencies.

That’s why the importance of data in driving efficiencies and the role of automation in optimizing business operations are becoming impossible for both buyers and suppliers to ignore.

Across the B2B landscape, there exists a growing emphasis on efficiency, accuracy, and strategic decision-making. At the center of it all, of course, are payments.

Riding the wave of momentum in virtual and electronic B2B payments, leveraging better digital solutions for B2B operations and unlocking the benefits of a best-in-class treasury function were among the B2B trends PYMNTS has been tracking this week.

The Momentum of Electronic B2B Payments

This most recent earnings season has spotlighted the fact that companies are still spending on corporate cards — and that virtual card use is on the rise.

Visa’s earnings call Tuesday (July 23) offered up insight into new payment flows, continued acceptance of virtual cards, and the ways in which business-to-business (B2B) transactions are moving into digital channels. It was just last Wednesday (July 17) too that Toqio and Visa partnered to provide Visa commercial cards to businesses that don’t offer financial services.

PYMNTS Intelligence data indicates firms not using virtual cards also happen to experience an average revenue loss of 4.6% from payment uncertainties.

But virtual cards aren’t the only payments must-have, other electronic solutions are steadily melting away the institutional inertia keeping paper checks and other legacy B2B methods in play.

On Wednesday, Fortis acquired MerchantE’s NetSuite payments division, saying the move will accelerate the deployment of new, embedded financial and commerce enabling solutions.

Bank of America said Thursday (July 25) that the volume of corporate payment approvals completed via its mobile app for corporate and commercial banking, CashPro App, is up 40% from last year. The volume topped $500 billion in the first half of 2024 and is on pace to reach $1 trillion by the end of the year.

Bank of America’s CashPro team has partnered with large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) and treasury management system (TMS) providers across the globe as part of its CashPro network, simplifying integration for business clients and meeting their data reporting and payments needs, Meg Garand, head of CashPro Payments and CashPro API at Bank of America, told PYMNTS in an interview posted last Friday (July 19).

And on Tuesday, U.S. Bank introduced an automated, comprehensive accounts receivable (AR) platform designed for suppliers. The U.S. Bank Advanced Receivables platform was created in partnership with Billtrust and combines the bank’s payment and risk management capabilities with Billtrust’s AR technology.

“The important thing to remember with AP and AR is that it’s not just about the business payment,” Evan Christopher, senior director of platform strategy at FIS, told PYMNTS on Tuesday. “It’s about managing relationships, purchase-related processes and tons of data, along with the matching and reconciliation process.”

Best-in-Class Treasury Programs for Best-in-Class Companies

Historically, the role of a company’s treasurer has been seen as wholly operational: focused on managing liquidity, risk and financial investments. However, as businesses navigate increasingly complex global markets and today’s higher-for-longer rate environment, the scope of the treasurer’s responsibilities has expanded — that’s the trend that PYMNTS unpacked on Thursday.

But while involving treasurers in strategic decision-making is increasingly recognized as essential for ensuring financial resilience and strategic agility, the latest PYMNTS Intelligence data reveals that over half (53%) of C-suite leaders misunderstand the role modern treasurers can play in a successful corporate strategy.

What they don’t see is that the treasurer’s expertise in financial markets, risk management and capital allocation are critical to the informed strategic decision-making necessary in navigating operational uncertainty.

Treasurers are now more focused on adopting advanced technologies such as SWIFT SCORE (Standardized Corporate Environment) APIs and sophisticated front-end systems to enhance liquidity management and streamline operations, Anith Daniel, head transaction-banking at Emirates NBD, told PYMNTS in an interview posted Tuesday.

Digital Tooling Drives Success

Salesforce has launched an AI-focused partnership with enterprise software firm Workday.

The collaboration, announced in a news release Wednesday (July 24), will see the two companies develop an artificial intelligence (AI) employee service agent that will automate time-consuming tasks, offer personalized support, and provide “surface data-driven insights that help employees work smarter and faster.”

Cart.com has made its proprietary warehouse and transportation management systems available as standalone offerings. These modules — Constellation WMS and Constellation TMS — join the company’s distributed order management system, which is called Constellation OMS, as standalone software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, Cart.com said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Finastra and CredAble announced they have partnered to enable banks to offer their corporate clients supply chain finance solutions. In this collaboration, CredAble’s supply chain finance platform has been integrated with the Finastra Trade Innovation trade services platform.

And also on Tuesday, news broke that Billie’s B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution has been integrated with Stripe and is now available on that financial infrastructure platform to select customers in Europe.

Cross-border trade payments platform XTransfer has joined forces with payments firm EBANX. The partnership, announced Tuesday, is designed to streamline B2B payments in Latin America.

And PYMNTS unpacked how, with the news Monday (July 22) that Google is pulling a U-turn and will no longer be phasing out third-party tracking cookies in Chrome, the continuity of marketing plans is back on the agenda for businesses, particularly those in the B2B space.

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