Most Retailers Say Real-Time Payments Strengthen B2B Relationships

Real-time payments are strengthening B2B relationships, with partners on both sides of the transaction reporting that they benefit from the payment method.

Eighty-nine percent of retailers that make real-time B2B payments say they have built stronger buyer-supplier relationships, and 76% of those that receive such payments say the same, according to “Corporate Changes in Payment Practices: The Retail Industry is Ramping Up Real-Time Payments,” a collaboration between PYMNTS and The Clearing House.

For both those making the payments and those receiving them, the ability to build stronger buyer-supplier relationships is ranked No. 2 among the top nine reasons for using real-time payments. Only the ability to make and receive payments fast and on time is ranked higher.

With Request for Payment (RfP) capability on the RTP network now offered by several of the network’s participants, broker dealers, billers and suppliers can request a payment from customers and receive an instant payment in response, The Clearing House said in August.

Those who receive an RfP can review it, decide whether to pay or decline it, and, if paying it, send an RTP payment in response.

When this capability was launched in August, B2B payments were one of the three permitted use cases.

“As market adoption grows and RTP participants, billers and payers gain experience with RfP, the permitted use cases on the RTP network are expected to expand to encompass all types of traditional and digital payment experiences,” The Clearing House said at the time of launch.

This kind of real-time ubiquity and connectivity has assisted the proliferation of real-time payments around the globe. As payments become more immediate, they no longer serve only a back-end function but also deliver benefits at the front end by become “a satisfaction tool,” Sarah Billings, senior vice president, head of payments and international product operations and transformation at PNC, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in September.

With the ability to build strong buyer-supplier relationships and other benefits in mind, retailers generally plan to use real-time payments more heavily going forward, PYMNTS Intelligence found. Real-time payments capabilities have already been widely implemented in the sector, and they have already made a mark on the retail landscape.