B-to-B payments

IT projects are under scrutiny due to the coronavirus, not only in terms of budgets but also how fast firms can deploy automation for tasks such as business payments for companies that have turned to remote work.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, it was becoming clear that the work of the past decade to establish the Single Euro Payment Area was paying off with real-time payments networks and opening possibilities for another European payments scheme.

Fintechs, startups and bank-led projects were already working to excise generations of inefficiencies out of supply chains. The coronavirus has heightened the need for smooth payments.

For decades, automated check reconciliation stood out as the lone sanctuary for AR professionals. However, the advent of payment automation indicates that electronic payment reconciliation is more than capable of taking up the baton, says Nvoicepay's Kim Lockett.

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to force a great leap forward in the fight to crush paper checks, which still account for about half of B2B payments, by moving more invoice payments online.

Siam Commercial Bank is partnering with Ripple to provide instant cross-border payments for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

In our first episode of PayDirt: A PaymentsSource Podcast, we talk with Melissa Smith, the CEO of WEX, and her colleague Jay Dearborn about the biggest changes in store for transit, health and corporate payments.

Digital payment firms and fintechs are nimble and responsive, but that also creates web supply chain attack risk, says Jscrambler's Rui Ribeiro.

When a business accidentally pays an invoice early, due to inaccurate due dates, a change to the delivery date or some other issue, everything changes, says Celonis' Southard Jones.

Even for companies that support remote work, having an entire staff working from home on short notice opens new complications for B2B payments and accounts receivable.