Lloyd’s syndicate and Previse use AI to tackle slow invoice payments

Beat Syndicate 4242 of Lloyd’s has become the first globally to insure the instant payment of business-to-business (B2B) invoices against dilution risk, creating a new category of insurance for pre-approval invoice payments.

Working with UK fintech Previse, Beat Syndicate, owned by Beat Capital Partners and managed by Asta Managing Agency, is underwriting its first pre-approval invoice payments for a large UK-based buyer and expects to scale rapidly to underwrite invoices globally over the next few years.

Previse invented the instant invoice payment technology that analyses invoice data from large corporations to tackle the persistent problem of slow invoice payments to SME suppliers and enables payment as soon as an invoice is received.

The fintech’s InstantPay technology, trained on trillions of dollars of real invoice spending, precisely quantifies dilution risk, i.e. the contingent risk that a large company won’t pay an invoice for legitimate reasons such as it being incorrect or fraudulent, or the goods were not correctly delivered. This risk analysis and risk management, together with a close collaboration with Beat in the development of the insurance product, made the underwriting of this risk possible.

By underwriting pre-approval invoice payments that have been authorised by InstantPay, it is now possible for large firms to have their suppliers paid on the day an invoice is received without ever having to give a formal payment undertaking. At the same time, the firms that provide the early payment funding can rely on the cover provided by Beat with the backing of A rated Lloyd’s security.