Corcentric Joins The B2B Payments Game

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From sourcing to invoicing, B2B transactions involve a lot of steps before the actual payment. Corcentric is one company that focuses on streamlining those business processes, but today, the company is announcing partnerships that integrate support of ePayments into its systems.

Using FIS-run PayNetExchange to process ACH, checks and virtual cards and using Comdata to issue Mastercard commercial cards, Corcentric pulls in payment capabilities across a range of rails to support the last mile of the B2B transaction.

Matt Clark, COO at Corcentric, offered PYMNTS some insight into the challenge of supporting the demands of both buyer and supplier, a feat that can include disparities over which payment rail either side prefers. In the context of the rollout of Same Day ACH, as well as new research that found companies have actually increased their use of the paper check in the last three years, the payment rail choice isn’t always easy.

“I think what ends up happening is it’s really the suppliers that dictate where the payment trends go,” Clark said, adding that, with this in mind, any B2B payments solution needs to be “holistic” and support multiple payment options.

It’s unlikely that one payment technology will become so popular that it drives others into irrelevancy, he said.

The data makes that glaringly clear. On the eve of the Same Day ACH rollout, the Association of Financial Professionals (AFP) published its 2016 Electronic Payments Survey, released every three years to examine corporate payment trends. In a reversal of past reports, 2016’s results found that corporate use of the paper check actually rose and has now returned as the most common form of payment, used by 51 percent of survey respondents.

It’s surprising, considering the numerous advances in electronic B2B payments technology, including ACH and virtual commercial cards.

“I think some of the mistakes people have made in the past are, for example, people were focused on implementing a card program, and that’s all they really focused on,” Clark said, explaining how corporate buyers have approached their payments strategy. “They went out to their supply base and said that all of these suppliers now have to accept credit card. But it turns out only 15 percent of their total spend could be on the card.”

Suppliers need to get on board with buyers’ payment strategies; otherwise, companies are left with that 85 percent of spend to fall on another payment rail — despite having invested resources into developing a commercial card payment program.

But there’s more to choosing a payment technology than supplier acceptance. Speed, for instance, is a strategic factor.

“Suppliers want to be paid faster, as quick as possible,” Clark noted, “and customers want to pay efficiently, on longer terms. There’s a lot of friction between suppliers and customers.”

It’s unlikely that Same Day ACH would be used for a same-day B2B payment in full, but Clark said that technology, and third-party payment providers, can help find the middle ground between buyer and supplier, enabling suppliers to get paid more quickly, while offering buyers time to manage cash or an early payment discount.

Today’s market, Clark said, makes B2B payment terms even more critical for each side when it comes to cash flow management.

“It almost becomes a new form of lending, where, as it becomes harder for businesses to get credit lines with banks or short-term loans to purchase inventory or make payroll, they need to find another source of cash — and find it fast,” the executive said.

For a supplier, that can mean getting paid faster. For a buyer, that can mean early payment discounts or strategic payment terms. Finding common ground between the two, of course, is key.

And Clark also pointed to the ability for electronic payment technologies to boost corporate cash management by adding visibility into their cash positions. Data as simple as corporations knowing that their payment has landed at a supplier, and suppliers knowing a payment is headed their way, means far greater control of finances than can be obtained without digitization.

Clark noted that this data is possible even with paper checks, though using the technology available to gain that visibility isn’t always used.

“Sometimes, customers, especially in the mid-market space, are either not aware of the best practices or just don’t have the resources to administer best practices,” he said, pointing to the Positive Pay tool to combat check fraud and to NACHA’s standards to secure ACH payments.

“It’s really all about taking each of the individual forms of payment, whether it be check, ACH or card payment, and doing it in a way that provides maximum visibility,” Clark added. “It’s key when it comes to the payment process.”

The electronic payment options for corporations are growing in sophistication, giving companies the chance to grasp cash flow control at unprecedented levels. But with the unexpected rise in paper check use for B2B payments, it’s clear digital support of paper checks may be the way to boost visibility and security for both buyer and supplier today.


‘Unbeatable’ Fake IDs Become Booming Underground Business

While digital identity crimes are an ever-present threat, fake physical IDs have never gone away.

And as The New York Times (NYT) reported recently, these IDs — long-prized by underage folks who want to hit the bars before they’re legally allowed — are only growing more sophisticated.

That’s because continual upgrades to license designs means that the type of fake ID students once put together themselves in their dorms no longer past muster, the report said. Now, counterfeiters are putting together fake IDs that include holograms, bar codes and laser engraving that can trick bar owners’ electronic scanners.

The counterfeiters, the report added, put up websites listing replicas by state, take payments in cryptocurrency, and build fake IDs with equipment and materials they promise can fool the sharpest-eyed bouncers.

These sites, NYT said, list licenses with “scientific specificity,” including details about card thickness in micrometers, laminates, and security enhancements like embedded data chips, ultraviolet features and coded magnetic strips.

“They are unbeatable,” Martin Sheil, 62, who owns the Josie Woods Pub in Greenwich Village, told NYT.

The report noted that Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport last month confiscated 984 counterfeit licenses in less than a week. Steve Bansbach, a federal Customs and Border Protection spokesman, told the newspaper that there’s a larger threat here than just kids getting served alcohol: the idea that these cards could be used in identity theft and human trafficking.

PYMNTS discussed the problem of fake IDs last year with Intellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis, who noted that advanced technologies are vulnerable to threats, as voice prints, face prints and facial recognition can all be mimicked with artificial intelligence (AI).

At the same time, he added, treating everyone like a criminal to filter out the small number of people who actually are criminals can inject friction into the verification process and harm businesses. The key, Lewis told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, is to let people prove they are who they say they are in the easiest way.

“If you can tell that a government-issued ID is real, that’s the most important step,” Lewis said. “After that, you can use the face or something else, because now we’ve tied a face or voice to an identity — and you can create an immutable token.”

Lewis said his company’s data shows that 1% of activity moving through title companies involves a fake ID. The same percentage applies to the bank branch setting, where someone could open an account to move money without a credit pull. It’s the reason account takeovers are one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, he added.