Today in B2B: SMBX Offers Bonds, Not Loans to SMBs; Small Businesses Prioritize Automating AR

Today in B2B payments, FinTech SMBX offers bonds rather than bank loans to small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Plus, Veem announces their Partner Connect program for global AP/AR-as-a-Service, and one-third of small businesses are planning to automate their accounts receivable by 2025.

Veem Debuts Partner Connect Program for Global AP/AR-as-a-Service

Business payment service provider Veem debuted the Veem Partner Connect program Thursday (Nov. 11) to give partners flexible integration options of its payment offerings.

Veem Partner Connect partners can use the platform to give their SMB customers AP/AR, invoicing and payment services for businesses looking to pay and get paid using embedded, configurable solutions that can be co-branded with Veem using a plug-and-play installation procedure.

Veem Partner Connect solutions also offer a hosted standalone feature that gives partners full access to Veem’s workflows and payment functionalities through a single sign-on. The program’s APIs allows Veem partners to customize the integration of Partner Connect’s capabilities to their systems and add drop-in components of Veem features, including invoice and payables.

One-Third of Small Businesses Plan to Automate Accounts Receivables by 2025

One-third (34%) of SMBs are making automated receivables a priority for their companies within the next three years, according to PYMNTS’ “Optimizing SMB Payments Report,” a collaboration with American Express.

Consumers’ preference for digital shopping and payments appears to be expanding outside of the B2C world, with more companies heading online to begin their sales relationships with new vendors or suppliers, as well as manage their payments.

Companies looking to switch to digital-first B2B processes to meet these new customer preferences still face challenges though. Payment collection is a particular problem for SMBs digitizing their processes, with more than 60% saying they have their invoices paid late and 16% saying payments can take more than a month.

FinTech Offers Small Business Bonds, Not Bank Loans to Fund Growth

SMBs looking to raise some money can now issue bonds to their everyday customers and cash in on their “beloveability factor” by offering bonds through the SMBX Marketplace.

That means SMB owners not only obtain funding more quickly, easily and affordably than they did by getting bank loans, they also build deeper connections with the communities that back them, SMBX Co-Founder and CEO Ben Lozano told PYMNTS in a recent interview.