The impact of high inflation, elevated rates and lower growth on European corporates

Europe’s economic outlook has weakened due to rising inflation, interest rate hikes and lower growth forecasts, with a technical recession Q1 2023 and projected growth between 0.2-0.6 percent for the year, according to various forecasts by the EIU, IMF, and ECB. Higher energy prices caused by Russia cutting supplies in response to EU sanctions is the key factor driving inflation. In this session we analyse the impacts of inflation on business in Europe, including the tech sector, how higher rates are influencing spending, investment and borrowing, and the impacts on corporate liquidity and working capital.

Regulation of payments in Europe is complex with multilayered supervision. As the European Commission evolves regulation beyond PSD2 with consultations towards PSD3, several institutions, in the ECB, EBA and FCA in the UK as well as national payment systems regulators, all play a  role in the shaping of the next iterations of payments policies. Key developments include secure customer authentication (SCA) review, and whether measures should be strengthened, buy now pay later (BNPL) regulation, open banking and finance regulation, currency conversion cost, as well as ongoing interchange review. Here regulatory stakeholders assess how changes will affect commercial payments for European businesses in the future.

Whilst T&E has traditionally been the largest spend category in commercial cards, growth markets and the diversification of spend categories in B2B markets fall into sectors where each market has different payment and transactional practices and solutions. In this session roundtables, we take a deep dive into the payment pain points and solutions evolving in growth verticals, including fleet & fuel and logistics, healthcare, government, education and  other sectors.

Payment leaders in this session explore how the changed economic conditions in Europe of higher prices and rates coupled with lower growth, are impacting the development of the payments ecosystem in terms of investment in product development and innovation, how enterprises of all sizes are managing payments challenges, and how the digitisation of payment systems and technologies can help companies through the current environment.  

The roundtables focus on the key areas of payments technologies that are evolving in corporate payment systems in Europe and the discussions will focus on their implementation and execution in a corporate context: Delegates choose 1

1. AP/AR automation
2. Digital Currencies
3. Embedded Finance
4. Virtual Cards
5. Merchant Acquiring
6. Spend Management
7. Fintech partnerships
8. Sustainability
9. Regulation
10. Growth Verticals

The European B2B payments market is growing at 7 percent annually and currently is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2025, according to Statistica. In Germany alone, the market was 204 billion U.S. in 2021 and forecast to reach almost 313 billion U.S dollars 2025. In this session we take a look at the key drivers for growth, the evolution of payment technologies  available to B2B merchants in Europe, including cards, payment apps and embedded payments, and how B2B markets are evolving  in different countries and sectors, with perspectives from corporates, banks and fintechs in the B2B ecosystem.

With 23 million small businesses in the EU, representing 99 percent of all companies, the payments challenges of smaller firms is a core focus in the B2B payments markets. For many small businesses, working capital is a critical lever for business liquidity which can be challenging to sustain in an inflationary cycle and elevated rate environment. In this session we examine the challenges to maintaining optimal working capital, and the technical tools that can help a healthy cash conversion cycle, reducing DPOs and DSOs, to ensure good flows. We also take a look at factoring and reverse factoring (SCF) solutions for SMB companies involved in supply chains and ask how payment systems technologies and products can drive capital efficiency and optimisation. 

Merchants or suppliers on the sell side of the transaction have a host of different technologies available to them to accept payments from buyers. Often the choice of payment modality is driven by cost and speed of settlement. In this session merchants discuss their needs and pain points in payment acceptance and banks discuss their strategies and solutions to enable merchants in Europe to optimise their payment acceptance systems and processes with a holistic integrated payables solution.

As companies and financial institutions are increasingly required to report on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability metrics to investors and shareholders, the payments industry, and the companies that provide solutions, also are embedding ESG KPIs in their operations. In payments, sustainability is increasingly part of supply chain agreements, and ESG scoring is a key feature in supplier selection. Within good governance, is the practice of positive diversity and inclusion policies within the company and the practice of attracting and retaining diverse talent in wider business. In this session we look at the implementation and impacts of ESG and D&I in the payments ecosystem and the benefits of positive policies for all.