ForwardAI Launches B2B Platform that Enables Real-Time Payments

ForwardAI has launched a B2B payments platform that enables real-time payments.

The new Forwardly platform is designed to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in North America get paid faster, save money on processing fees and streamline workflows, ForwardAI said Wednesday (June 7).

“Forwardly helps businesses accept payments faster, retain money longer and spend less on processing fees, which ultimately means less time spent worrying about keeping cash in the bank,” ForwardAI CEO and Co-Founder Nick Chandi said.

ForwardAI’s new Forwardly utilizes The Clearing House’s RTP Network, will support the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service when that launches in July, and can be used without creating a new bank account, changing banks or pre-funding a settlement account or wallet, according to the press release.

The instant payments enabled by the platform allow businesses to get paid up to three days faster than ACH or other legacy payment options and save as much as 80% compared to credit card processing fees, the release said.

The platform also eliminates manual tasks by integrating with bank accounts and accounting systems — allowing payments to be reconciled instantly, per the release.

“Cash flow is the most critical component of a business’s financial health, and in today’s economic climate, it’s more important than ever for small businesses to have visibility and control over their finances,” Chandi said in a released statement.

PYMNTS research has found that instant payments are quickly growing in popularity in the United States and abroad. Still, their adoption has often been hampered by a need to interface with customers’ preferred financial institutions.

Open banking can solve this problem by allowing instant payment providers to connect with any bank’s application programming interface (API) and meet customers where they are, according to “Open Banking and Real-Time Payments: An Essential Partnership,” the May edition of the “Real-Time Payments Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and The Clearing House collaboration.

Instant payments have been embraced in the B2B realm, especially as instant transaction limits have been increased to $1 million, Jim Colassano, RTP product manager at The Clearing House, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in March.

“Real-time payments and precision payments allow you to target pain points, and on the B2B side we see businesses starting to take advantage of early payment discount by making payments instantaneously even on the weekend,” Colassano said.