NEW DATA: Why One-Third Of Businesses Want Real-Time Payments

Paper checks are still the norm when it comes to B2B payments — and companies aren’t happy about it. After all, paper checks are neither easy to use, nor convenient.

Twenty percent of companies surveyed by PYMNTS said they dislike using checks for B2B payments because of fraud concerns, while another 18 percent said checks are too expensive. Yet, almost half of the businesses surveyed use checks to send or receive payments on a daily basis.

Change is overdue, and most businesses know that. Many are making B2B payments innovation a priority, with those of all sectors and sizes exploring digital payment options, such as automated payables and receivables, virtual cards and even blockchain payments.

However, above everything else, businesses are most keen to adopt real-time payments, according to findings in the Real-Time Payments Innovation Playbook, a PYMNTS and Mastercard collaboration. The playbook highlights more than 430 survey data points, collected from interviewing 400 decision-makers in more than 12 different industries to learn why companies use the B2B payment solutions they do, how they plan on changing those payment systems in the near future and why.

The study revealed that the most innovative businesses are set to adopt real-time payments — and soon. In fact, one-third said they plan to adopt the technology in the next three years. Among innovation leaders, the percentage was even higher, with 60 percent of the most innovative companies saying they will adopt real-time payments in the next three years.

Yet, there is still a general lack of knowledge in the market surrounding what, exactly, real-time payments is and what benefits it can provide. More than half of all businesses surveyed said they did not know enough about real-time payments to consider it as a viable B2B option, making the simple lack of education the greatest inhibitor to its adoption.

Luckily, a lack of education is an easy problem to fix. It is on financial institutions and payment providers alike to inform on the specifics of real-time payments, what it can accomplish and how it can benefit businesses.

This playbook is the first step in the PYMNTS series that seeks to explore businesses’ interest in payments innovation, and how it’s set to evolve over time.