Year-End Stats Show Their Range

The B2B payments data from last week ranges from six all the way to 4.45 billion, with a similarly diverse range in industries and geography. From alternative small business financing to corporate money manager responsibilities, from the U.S. to China, the research this week uncovered striking insight into how businesses access, maintain and spend their money. Check out our recap below.

[bctt tweet=”Research this week looks at how businesses access, maintain and spend money.”]

4.45 billion: The amount, in U.S. dollars, that small and medium-sized businesses in the U.K. are expected to access in 2015 from peer-to-peer lending platforms before the year ends, according to new data from MarketInvoice. That figure is the result of a more than 50 percent increase in year-over-year growth of alternative lending volume for SMEs in the country.

“U.K. small businesses have been quick off the mark in embracing alternative finance,” stated MarketInvoice CEO and Cofounder Anil Stocker in a statement last week. “Even if banks don’t want to lend to our small businesses, there are lots of people that are happy to step in and fill the funding gap.”

MarketInvoice itself has lent nearly $900 million through its platform, reports said. The firm’s analysis also forecasted that U.K. peer-to-peer small business lending is likely to hit the $8.9 billion mark in 2016 if current trends continue.

72: The percentage of chief financial officers and other corporate money managers surveyed that said their corporations have added a new responsibility for these professionals: cybersecurity.

According to new research from the American Institute of CPAs of holders of the Chartered Global Management Accountant designation, today’s CFOs are now tasked with protecting their companies against cyberattacks. The study revealed that more than one-fifth of those surveyed said that cyberthreats are worse than they are portrayed in the media, while the majority agreed that their businesses are either moderately or significantly concerned about a cyberattack.

And this fear is on the rise: 68 percent said their corporations are concerned about these events, up from 62 percent the year prior. Further, 30 percent said their corporation had been the victim of a cyberattack in the last two years, also an increase from 22 percent who said the same in 2014, reports said.

49: The percentage of small businesses in the U.K. using bank loans and overdrafts to access working capital. It’s a statistic that, by itself, doesn’t mean much. But when juxtaposed against the percentage of SMEs using these tools just two years prior — 76 percent — it’s a bit more striking.

It’s also a bit more striking when placed in the context of MarketInvoice’s Anil Stocker, who remarked on the rise of alternative lending last week, too.

The figure was released in the Albion Growth Report, which also revealed a 17 percent increase in the number of SMEs that have accessed financing to fuel business growth between 2013 and 2014.

So, how are these businesses accessing loans despite turning their backs on the banks? Alternative finance, researchers concluded, with 34 percent of SMEs in 2015 reporting using third-party lending services or long-term financing — up from just 6 percent in 2013.

A slew of other figures were included in the report, released last week. For example, 18 percent of SMEs surveyed said they still suffer from a lack of access to financing, with young entrepreneurs under the age of 35 the most likely demographic of small business owner to confront challenges when seeking working capital.

6: The percentage of Chinese third-party payment gross merchant volume (GMV) that came straight from B2B eCommerce in the fiscal year’s second quarter, reports from iResearch said last week. It may not seem to be much, but that figure is a significant driver of the $430 billion worth of payments processed via online shopping in the period for China, a 15.7 percent year-over-year increase.

B2B eCommerce is expected to grow worldwide in the coming years, but China is a particular hotbed of activity. The nation has, however, seen a bit of a decline in this segment as a result of the dropping value of imports and exports for China on the global market, researchers noted. Still, the nation’s eCommerce market was valued at nearly $2 trillion for 2014.

The year has come to an end, but the data has done anything but slow its roll. Analysts are sure to be aggregating and analyzing the statistics from B2B payments in 2015 to identify where the market is headed into the new year, and we’ll be on top of it all next week with our first B2B Data Digest of 2016.