Today in B2B payments, Mondu names a Klarna veteran as its legal chief, while digital payments help vehicle transporters boost capacity. Plus, B2B welcomes the modernization of the payment process; EnKash rakes in $20 million in a Series B fundraising round; two-thirds of financial institutions (FIs) know B2B payment solutions are crucial; B2B partnerships play an important role in the cryptocurrency sector; and wholesale distributors can tap B2B innovation for less reliance on manual checks and processes.
B2B Payments Firm Mondu Names Klarna Veteran as New Legal Chief
German B2B payments FinTech Mondu has appointed Klarna veteran Miyu Lee to serve as its chief legal officer and general counsel. Lee was previously with Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Klarna before joining the Berlin-based firm. Mondu offers small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) a BNPL solution that helps “merchants and marketplaces improve conversion rates and protect themselves against default risk while alleviating the operational burden of collection and dunning.”
Digital Payments Help Vehicle Transporters Increase Capacity
Car dealers hire transporters to move new and used cars from auction to dealer, from dealer to dealer or from dealer to consumer via phone calls, text messages, emails, paper invoices and checks. Dave Sperau, founder and chief revenue officer of Autosled, saw the inefficiencies in this process during his time as a general manager at car dealerships. Sperau founded Autosled to transition these tasks to a digital platform, so that everything is in one place, payments are quicker, and it’s easier for these small businesses to get paid.
PYMNTS Intelligence: Modernizing the Digital Payments Process for B2B Clients
Although many businesses provide agile and secure payment methods for consumers, the pandemic exposed significant discrepancies in their abilities to provide the same to B2B clients. PYMNTS’ surveys of FIs found that the pandemic intensified the friction B2B clients experience managing invoicing and payments. FIs said their clients reported numerous financial management pain points, including slow underwriting (15%), general invoice reconciliation (14%) and working capital management processes (11%).
Indian Spend Management Platform EnKash Raises $20M in Series B
Spend management platform EnKash has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round led by Ascent Capital. With this new funding, the company plans to expand its suite of platforms and banking portals, delve deeper into the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) space, and scale up its “plug and play” card issuance stack, while also expanding internationally. Joining the funding round were Baring India and the Singapore’s White Ventures, along with existing investors Mayfield India and Axilor Ventures.
Two-Thirds of Financial Institutions Recognize Need for B2B Payment Solutions
FIs seeking to engage and retain corporate clients are exploring how they can solve clients’ B2B payments frictions by building their own solutions — with varying results, according to “The New User Experience, “a PYMNTS and FIS collaboration based on a survey of 311 executives leading FIs’ managing assets in excess of $500 million. PYMNTS research found that, although two-thirds of FIs said digital payments solutions are “very” or “extremely” important in addressing clients’ B2B payments frictions, only three out of 10 said their current solutions are “very” or “extremely” effective in reducing B2B payments frictions for clients.
Robust B2B Partnerships Key to Building Business Apps, Relationships in Crypto Sector
If a business is running on spreadsheets, workarounds and manual processes, it’s going to be difficult to build and scale. That’s why Justin McMahan, chief financial officer (CFO) at mobile crypto trading and lending platform Abra, aims to build a scalable digital foundation for the company’s business processes that brings the accountability wealth management customers demand into the financial world. One key to accomplishing this is selecting B2B vendors that share the same commitments.
The 34,000 companies operating in the United States’ wholesale food distribution industry generate about $991 billion in collective yearly revenue. Even as digital technologies advance, however, paper checks still account for a large segment of wholesalers’ B2B payments. The paper check industry standard has led to growing frictions as wholesalers face pandemic-related supply chain struggles and increased demand worldwide.
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