Today in B2B Payments: Digital Lockboxes Transform B2B Invoicing; Ripple Targets Treasury Management

Today in B2B payments, CFOs are looking to harness the real power of blockchain, while Balance raises $56 million for online global trade with B2B eCommerce checkout. Plus, Vendasta brings its SMB software expertise to BigCommerce partnership, cultural fit matters when finding a B2B payments partner and Monite and Codat add embedded invoices and bill payments to apps.

Balance Raises $56M for Online Global Trade With B2B eCommerce Checkout

B2B marketplace and eCommerce payments platform Balance announced a $56 million Series B fundraising round Tuesday (July 26), bringing the company’s total funding to $87 million. The company said it will use the funding to expand its offering to eCommerce platforms internationally, enabling B2B merchants to grow their digital revenue.

Forerunner Ventures led Balance’s funding effort, with support from Salesforce Ventures, Hubspot Ventures, Lyra Ventures and Gramercy Ventures. Angel investors included former Shopify executive Jeff Wisener and Faire CTO and co-founder Marcelo Cortes, as well as previous investors Ribbit Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Avid Ventures, Upwest and Jibe.

The company works with hundreds of B2B merchants and marketplaces, including lumber, chemical, steel, retail and food companies, and has grown tenfold since its launch in February 2021, per the release.

Digital Lockboxes Transform B2B Invoicing, Payments in 5 Key Ways

To help business partners collaborate on generating and processing invoicing and payments, more businesses are adopting digital lockboxes. Doing so can optimize transactions and reduce the work involved in sending, receiving and reconciliating payment information, according to “Reimagining Business Payments,” a PYMNTS and Billtrust collaboration.

It can also ensure payments arrive quickly and securely, with remittance data integrated directly into an accounts payable or enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.

A digital lockbox captures all the information that runs alongside and within transactions, logs into the websites and makes sure that cards qualify at the best possible rates, Billtrust CEO Flint Lane told PYMNTS in a February interview. The boxes match up automated clearinghouse payments with remittance details and send them back to the business in a single file that ERP systems can digest. Cloud-based platforms also take the onus off companies’ having to build their own accounts receivable systems.

SMB Software Firm Vendasta Teams With BigCommerce

Business software company Vendasta is working with Software-as-a-Service platform BigCommerce, the Canadian company announced Tuesday (July 26). The collaboration will help Vendasta’s partners deliver “deliver professional eCommerce websites to their small- and medium-sized business (SMB) clients in a scalable way.”

The integration will let Vendasta’s partners adopt BigCommerce’s Commerce-as-a-Service solution themselves, or use Vendasta’s marketing services for delivery.

Vendasta said its partners would soon be able to offer the BigCommerce platform for resale to SMB clients, giving them access to features such as online store creation, search engine optimization, hosting, marketing and security. The integration is set to launch in the later part of 2022.

Monite, Codat Team to Allow Embedded Invoices, Bill Payments in Apps

Embedded finance startup Monite and Codat, a small business data application programming interface, have teamed up to incorporate accounts payable and accounts receivable capabilities into existing apps, in order to aid small businesses using more than 40 apps to manage their finances and operations.

That number is growing about 30% year to year, thanks to the number of new software tools for small- to medium-sized businesses becoming available.

Monite and Codat’s partnership will allow Software-as-a-Service platforms and financial institutions to integrate invoicing and billing capabilities into their apps to create a offering for businesses to manage their operations and finances.

Ripple Partners With FOMO Pay to Improve Treasury Management

Singapore-based payment solution provider FOMO Pay has teamed up with Ripple to use the company’s cryptocurrency-powered technology to improve cross-border treasury flow, according to a press release.

“On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) leverages XRP, the digital asset built for payments as a bridge between two fiat currencies, enabling instant and low-cost settlement without the need to hold pre-funded capital in a destination market,” the release stated.

ODL has been mainly been used for cross-border payments to help payment services providers (PSPs) and small- to medium-sized businesses manage trapped capital that could be better used to help their companies grow and scale. But traditional treasury payments come with the same pain points and friction as cross-border payments because of the outdated infrastructure used in correspondent banking, Ripple said in the release, noting that about $3.5 billion is spent each year addressing treasury and liquidity issues.

CFOs Look Beyond FOMO to Find Blockchain’s Real Power

As someone who has been in tech for a long time, Chia Network Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Misha Graboi has gotten accustomed to the cyclical nature of the business.

Whenever the technological flavor of the day looks like a world-changer, people tend to overestimate its potential in the short run and underestimate it in the long run, Graboi said. Then, there’s a point when the initial euphoria and fear of missing out (FOMO) gets replaced by a more rational investing environment.

Interviewed for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” Graboi said that, like other organizations, Chia must focus first on its workaday responsibilities — handling payroll, paying vendors, filing taxes and keeping the lights on.

Why ‘Cultural Fit’ Matters When Picking a B2B Payments Partner

The days of simply operating with a cash register and credit card machine on the counter are long gone, said Matt Good, senior vice president and general manager of Elan Advisory Services at U.S. Bank. Nowadays, a digital storefront, eCommerce website or connection to a delivery platform is a must. The brick-and-mortar business must leap to an omnichannel world.

As Good told PYMNTS, smaller merchants have had to “dramatically change — literally overnight — the ways in which they operate and accept payments.” And most of them have pivoted to embrace and offer more payment options to their end users.

Those end users, he said, have been shifting their payments preferences and have found comfort and convenience in using tap-to-pay, mobile wallets and even text-to-pay options, which in turn have changed in-person experiences with their chosen merchants.

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