Adrian Floate 5 January - 4 min read
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 2020 being defined by a huge uptake of business-to-customer (B2C) payment services, such as contactless transactions and online shopping.
As businesses across the globe assess how they will bounce back and upscale their capabilities, there are unprecedented opportunities for the acceleration and adoption of fintech innovation in the business-to-business (B2B) space.
Breakthrough fintech technology in postpay options will result in a revolutionary and transformative year for B2B payments in 2021.
The past year has been a boom for B2C focused fintechs, such as the explosion of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and pay-by-instalment services. However, there continues to be a substantial gap in the B2B financial services market.
The universal challenges for B2B trade continues to be the time it takes to get paid and following up debtors.
These issues impact a company’s cash flow and access to capital.
The reasons for slow payment times include:
Buy Now, Pay Later
Australia leads the way in the Asia-Pacific region for offering trade credit to customers. Trade credit now accounts for more than 70 per cent of the total value of B2B sales for Australian companies. This trend is likely to continue because BNPL is a quick way to sell goods and services.
A major flaw with BNPL is that all of the financial risk remains with the supplier until the invoice is paid. Fintech innovations next year will help reduce this risk by offering an AfterPay type solution in the B2B space designed to help businesses get paid quicker.
B2B pay-by-instalments
Pay-one, pay-all invoices
Workflow Payments
Automatic reconciliation
With COVID-19 continuing to impact our personal and professional lives, for businesses, 2021 was another opportunistic year which meant that in order to stay ahead of the curve, businesses needed to remain agile and adapt quickly to changing consumer behaviours and payment trends.
Strong cash flow is critical for any business. Without it, businesses will have difficulty meeting their regular expenses, let alone have the capital to make larger investments in growth.
With measures such as the Federal Government’s JobKeeper Payment Scheme ending on 28 March 2021, a slight cooling in the country’s economy wouldn’t have been a surprise. However, that hasn’t been the case.
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