Partnering with Fintechs is leading strategy for B2B payments innovation, Bottomline survey finds

Bottomline Technologies has announced the results of the 2019 B2B Payments and Working Capital Management Strategies Survey in partnership with Strategic Treasurer. Survey results show that across the B2B payments landscape, partnering with fintechs will be the strategy of choice for a majority of banks and a growing number of corporates.

According to the survey results, three in four banks (76%) are either looking to leverage fintech solutions as much as possible for payment-related services and solutions, or are doing so to deliver select niche capabilities to specific customer segments. Related to this, 28% of corporates indicated that they use a non-bank provider for payments currently, and nearly one in three corporates (32%) plan to expand their use of fintech payment solutions within the next three years. In the same B2B Payments study conducted two years ago, less than one in five corporates were using non-bank payment solutions.

The third annual 2019 B2B Payments Survey polled more than 300 financial professionals from companies of all sizes and industries spanning both North America and Europe. The survey was conducted from January to March of 2019.

According to the survey, there is variation in which aspect of B2B payments businesses focus on depending on their size. Small companies are twice as likely to focus on accounts receivable (AR) initiatives compared to their larger peers, which are more likely to focus on payables. For organisations of all sizes, top areas of remaining inefficiency across treasury, AP and AR include cash forecasting, invoice processing, and payment receipt and reconciliation.
The changing payments technology landscape continues to remain a focus for banks and corporates, with additional findings including:

  • The survey finds that faster and emerging payments are gaining traction, as nearly half of corporates are using or interested in using new payment services. Among these new payment services, the top focus is real-time payments (55%), followed by same-day ACH (44%) and blockchain-based networks (35%).
  • Both banks and corporates agree that APIs are the technology that will have the biggest impact on the B2B payments landscape over the next two to three years.
  • 76% of banks indicate that their corporate customers are asking for automated B2C payment services. One-third of banks already offer these services, and another 48% are evaluating them.
  • 13 times more corporates indicate their comfort level with mobile payments has improved vs. deteriorated over the past year, highlighting a consistent trend of rising comfort.