Giving Thanks, The B2B Payments Way

We’re all thankful for something this holiday season, but for those in the world of B2B payments, giving thanks isn’t your typical turkey-and-stuffing event. PYMNTS asked Bob Solomon, CEO of Software Platform Consulting and B2B payments guru, to tell us what he’s thankful for this season when it comes to business-to-business finance and technology; it may be the only Thanksgiving list to include paper checks and machine learning. Read the rest of what Solomon gave thanks for.

As a B2B Payments practitioner, I’m thankful for all the things that make the B2B opportunity as plump as a Thanksgiving turkey:

• Paper Checks
• Interchange
• The odd fact that most “procure-to-pay” vendors do not actually do the “pay” part!
• Venture capitalists willing to invest in the 155^th alt-finance startup
• Buyers who extend their payment terms for high cost of capital suppliers (as long as I am not one of their suppliers!)
• Cross-border payments that continually grow at rates faster than global GDP
• The correspondent banking system
• Foreign currencies
• Banking regulations (since I’m not a bank!)
• The Internet (Al Gore), blockchain, big data, APIs and machine learning
• Summary billing, partial shipments, rejections, VAT, duties, customs and other juicy “complications”
• Global marketplaces
• A government that tolerates relatively high levels of industry concentration
• The beautiful math of multiplying almost any number by $20 trillion
• Network effects
• Being in the right country at the right time in history

On a more serious note, if you are able to read and appreciate this list, I’m guessing you have much, much more to be thankful for, as I surely do!

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Bear down, Chicago Bears!