B-to-B payments

The majority of small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. and Europe express an interest in real-time payments, but very few are aware of the current options being tested and brought to market.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and PNC Bank are the first three banks to adopt the service, which is aimed at customers who use Visa commercial cards to buy supplies from Amazon Business.

With big companies frequently set in their ways for how they make cross-border payments, most innovation is targeted toward smaller shops that make fewer payments to foreign suppliers. But that isn't always the case.

The process of making cross-border payments to global suppliers is a hodgepodge of technology, banking systems and other factors that can lead to high error rates. And for most companies, such payments occur too infrequently to invite improvements to the process.

Businesses are shedding paper checks in favor of electronic payments, but the migration is not as easy as consumer payments.

A full changeout of AML and KYC rules would stress compliance. Working to improve current practices would be better for the financial services and payments industries.

Business still use lots of checks for payments. That may have worked in the past, but it likely won't work in an increasingly digital future.

If the European Commission's revamped Payment Services Directive had a goal of enticing more innovation and, thus, more startups to enter financial services, Modulr Finance Ltd. CEO Myles Stephenson got the message.

Business-to-business payments network provider Viewpost will encourage more small and mid-size clients to convert to electronic payments through Visa virtual commercial cards.

The business-to-business payments market is one of the laggards in transaction automation, and a reason often given is the lack of customization options. Businesses are using consumer-style technology for business purposes, and the fit isn't right.