Bottomline Technologies Discovers ‘Leading Strategy’ Of FinTech Partnerships In Survey

Across the business-to-business (B2B) payments landscape, results of a Bottomline Technologies survey found that partnering with FinTechs will be the strategy of choice for a majority of banks and a growing number of corporates. The company recently unveiled its 2019 B2B Payments and Working Capital Management Strategies Survey in partnership with Strategic Treasurer, according to a press release.

Strategic Treasurer Managing Partner Craig Jeffrey said in the press release, “Whether you’re a bank or a corporate, FinTech payment solutions need to be given a serious examination.” Jeffrey continued, “Banks and corporates stand to benefit from aligning with FinTech solution providers across all aspects of payments to arm themselves with the capabilities required to stay competitive.”

Three in four – or 76 percent – of banks are either looking to leverage FinTech solutions as much as possible for services related to payments or are doing so to deliver select niche capabilities to certain customer segments. The company noted that, related to that point, nearly three in ten – or 28 percent – of corporates noted that they currently use a non-bank provider for payments. By contrast, less than one in five corporates were using non-bank payment solutions in the same B2B Payments study conducted two years ago.

The survey polled over 300 financial professionals from various-sized firms in different industries in North America as well as Europe. In other findings, the survey noted that almost half of corporates are using or interested in using new payment services. The top focus is on real-time payments at 55 percent and Same-Day ACH at 44 percent. Those figures were followed by blockchain-based networks at 35 percent.

The company also noted that corporates, as well as banks, agree that application programming interfaces (APIs) are the technology that will have the largest impact on the landscape of B2B payments over the next two to three years. It also noted that 76 percent of banks indicate that their corporate customers are asking for automated B2C payment services. One-third of banks have these services already, while another 48 percent are looking into them.