US, UK Businesses Split Over Fraud-Fighting Ability of Enhanced X-Border Payments Tech

Half or more of the U.S. and U.K. businesses that are planning cross-border payments innovations expect them to yield three primary benefits: reduced costs, improved cash management and reduced fraud.

While U.S. businesses are more likely to expect improved cash management, and U.K. businesses are more likely to expect reduced costs, a nearly equal share of the companies interviewed in both countries — 51% or 52% — expect reduced fraud, according to “Innovating Cross-Border Payments,” a PYMNTS and Visa collaboration that draws from a survey of 456 payment decision-makers.

Get the report: Innovating Cross-Border Payments

PYMNTS research shows that smaller businesses in both countries are especially concerned about cross-border payments falling victim to fraud or theft.

These smaller businesses stand out as being the most concerned with innovations’ potential to mitigate fraud risk. Sixty-four percent of the smaller businesses in the survey said they believe that reduced fraud risk is one of the chief benefits of cross-border payments innovation. This is far more than the 51% of larger businesses and 46% of mid-sized businesses that said the same.

Implementing Solutions to Meet Diverse Needs 

Larger businesses are chiefly concerned with reducing the cost of making and receiving cross-border payments by implementing innovations.

There’s a growing need for such innovations, as Visa reported in October that its total cross-border payments volumes, in constant dollars, gained 38% year on year.

Read more: Visa X-Border Payments Volumes Surge 38%

While there are some stark differences between how businesses headquartered in the U.S. and the U.K. prioritize their innovations, both are looking to implement solutions that meet the diverse needs of their various international suppliers.

Payments innovations such as real-time payments, accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) automation and virtual cards can enhance many aspects of businesses’ cross-border payments processes, and the businesses that invest in them often do so with specific operational goals in mind.

Push payments and digital wallets are among the two most common types of innovations that businesses plan to implement for making payments, regardless of the geographic areas to which they make cross-border payments.

Improving Speed, Efficiency and Security 

Automating payables is most commonly cited as an innovation priority for U.S. and U.K. businesses making payments to business partners in South America.

Enabling business partners to choose how they would like to receive payments is the top priority for U.S. and U.K. businesses making cross-border payments to South Asia.

While each business across the board is prioritizing different innovations that address the unique payments frictions they face, both U.S. and U.K. businesses with international customers and suppliers are eager to improve the speed, efficiency and security of the cross-border payments that have become central to their success.

The diversity of innovations they prioritize not only illustrates the operational shortcomings international U.S. and U.K. businesses are most eager to alleviate but also underscores how instrumental they believe cross-border payments innovations are to enhancing their businesses and optimizing their potential.