Bank of America launches AP automation platform
As low interest rates reduce margins on deposits, banks are competing with payments fintechs to offer unified expense management platforms for business customers.
In such, Bank of America has announced that it has launched the Complete AP platform to help businesses digitize and automate their accounts payable departments. The press note mentioned that this ‘can be integrated into almost any existing enterprise technology with minimal interruption’.
In April 2021, Bank of America announced the acquisition of Axia technologies to step into healthcare payments while the bank in 2020 launched a suite of business treasury APIs which connected through CashPro.
“Many companies overlook their treasury back-offices as a place to find efficiencies or target for technology investments, prioritizing instead the more visible revenue-generating initiatives of their business”, said Brad Garfield, Global Head of Commercial Card Product in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America.
Last year, Wells Fargo partnered with Bill.com to launch AP automation for commercial clients.
Also adding further that the AP platform by the bank would reduce manual processing and human error. The platform captures and digitizes suppliers invoices, sending them for coding and approval via an online portal.
“Among the many things the pandemic has highlighted is the central role that digital solutions play in a company’s business continuity plans,” said Stephanie Wolf, head of Global Financial Institutions, Governments and Business Banking in Global Transaction Services at Bank of America.
As the company’s AP team selects the invoice for payment, the platform transacts ‘the payment via a virtual card, ACH, or check in accordance with the supplier’s preference’. The press release noted that the companies that can take benefit from the bank’s Complete AP would be those who have ‘a dispersed back-office and a desire to centralize accounts payable, and are currently processing more than 200 invoices per month with more than 75 percent of total payments sent via check’.