Lloyds Bank partners with Visa to upgrade payment process for businesses
Commercial payment companies are embracing Straight-Through Processing to speed up the financial transaction process.
This week, Lloyds Bank has announced that it has partnered with Visa to offer Straight Through Processing (STP) to its commercial clients using its commercial charge cards. The bank claims that it is the first in Europe to offer this technology.
The press note stated that the technology enables efficient ways of paying invoices while providing traditional benefits of commercial card payments to both buyers and suppliers.
It also mentioned that with this technology, buyers can request to time their payments to maximize the number of days before their statement, giving them more flexibility with their cash flow than would be the case with a bank transfer while for suppliers, they can benefit by receiving funds directly into their accounts without the need to manually input card details.
Last month, Visa, Nium and Fuiou Pay collaborated on the global business payment solution.
“STP turns the traditional supplier-initiated payments model on its head. It makes conversations around card payments easier, provides more control and insight over the transaction and can help buyers and sellers improve their working capital”, said James Sykes, Head of Commercial Cards at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking.
The press release also highlighted that the bank had launched payables API back in 2019 which enabled businesses to send faster payments directly from their systems without human intervention which the bank now processes £350m of payments every month.