NEW REPORT: How Smarter Payments Build Smarter, Safer Marketplaces

The rise of faster payment systems worldwide are not only enabling payments to move between parties at greatly enhanced speeds, but a growing share of companies are rethinking their traditional business models to take advantage of these more efficient payment tools.

The new Smarter Payments Tracker looks at how the rise of faster payment systems is enabling businesses to shift to smarter business models, and prompting different types of businesses — from governments to the gig economy — to deliver funds more quickly to buyers, sellers, suppliers and employees, as well as improve long-term business relationships.

Around The Smarter Payments World

Governments around the world are embracing the potential of faster payment systems, and embracing smarter payment benefits in the process.

In an effort to digitize B2B payments, the Spanish government, for one, recently released an online platform that enables government contractors to electronically submit invoices for their work. The move came three months after Spanish authorities passed a law requiring public procurement documents to be electronically submitted.

Meanwhile, Canada is preparing for changes to its own payments infrastructure. A group of banks in the Great White North recently added a third exchange window, enabling companies to make electronic fund transfers (EFTs) in Canadian dollars. The move could also help companies on Canada’s west coast to avoid the potential pitfalls of late payments.

It’s not just banks and governments that are changing business models — even the gig economy is shifting its standard practices. On-demand delivery service Postmates, for example, recently announced plans to work with Visa to offer “instant deposits,” allowing its drivers to access their wages in real time instead of waiting seven days for a weekly payout.

Deep Dive: How Faster Payments Change Business As Usual

Newer data has indicated that faster payment services have cropped up in over 40 global markets in recent years. With services becoming available in such markets as the U.S., Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, banks are feeling the pressure to develop smarter payment solutions that would not only improve the speed at which their customers conduct business, but transmit important transactional data.

The Tracker includes a data-rich Deep Dive that examines how faster payment systems are ushering in changes to the B2B and B2C payment markets.

Smarter Payments Make Marketplaces Smart

However, change isn’t always embraced quickly by all. Some digital marketplaces, for example, simply offer buyers and sellers the opportunity to look at available items for sale and communicate with each other. However, when it comes to exchanging funds for the purchase of an item, the transaction is completed in person instead of online — meaning both parties must blindly trust each other.

Digital escrow tools could provide the roadmap to helping these marketplaces evolve and offer solutions, like data insights and payment processing, directly within the platform. In this month’s feature story, Jackson Elsegood, general manager of digital escrow solution provider Escrow.com, explains how these tools can elevate old-school marketplaces into smart marketplaces.

Download the report to read the feature story, the Deep Dive and the headlines.

About The Tracker

The Smarter Payments Tracker, powered by FIS, is a bimonthly report that looks at how payment systems are evolving to become faster, transmit data, offer interoperability between systems and more to improve the payer and payee experience.