Today in B2B payments, brands are offering NFTs rather than loyalty programs to their customers, while a PYMNTS report reveals the three must-have B2B payment tools for small businesses. Plus, Cartona will expand thanks to a $12 million fundraising round, HDBank and Unilever team up on a Vietnam-based financing program, and trade finance gets a facelift with B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings.
3 Must-Have B2B Payment Tools for Small Businesses
Small- to medium-sized business (SMB) payers and suppliers often encounter a mismatch between the ways the two players want to make and receive payments — a potential source of continuous friction in the B2B ecosystem.
For the SMB payers, the four most cited issues that they typically face when making payments are manual invoice review, high payment and credit costs, time wasted during payments processing and a lack of financing alternatives. That’s according to “The Future of Business Payables Innovation,” a PYMNTS and Plastiq collaboration based on a survey of 500 SMBs with revenues between $500,000 and $100 million and accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) executives with SMBs as clients.
Tech-driven, all-in-one platforms solve the mismatch between buyers and suppliers and foster collaboration between enterprises where friction once reigned, Plastiq Chief Operating Officer Stoyan Kenderov told PYMNTS in an April interview. SMBs can benefit from modern platforms that enable them to easily capture card payments — even if the supplier doesn’t accept them.
Finexio Grabs $14M at $100M Valuation in Series B Funding Round
B2B accounts payable (AP) payments-as-a-service (PaaS) company Finexio has closed a $30 million fundraising round at a $100 million pre-money valuation, according to a Monday (July 25) company press release.
Mendon Venture Partners and National Bank Holdings led Finexio’s funding effort, with participation by Discover Financial Services, Post Road Partners, The Banc Funds, EOM Investments and other new and current investors.
The fresh capital will allow Finexio to grow its team and accelerate its product development. Finexio enables B2B PaaS capabilities into AP and procure-to-pay software platforms, providing corporate clients with predictive payment and cashflow analytics capabilities, supplier identity and fraud prevention technology and exception processing automation.
B2B Marketplace Cartona Raises $12M For Expansion
Cartona, an Egyptian B2B eCommerce marketplace for the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space, has raised $12 million in Series A funding, according to a Monday (July 25) press release.
The company plans to use the funds to extend its footprint in Egypt, expand its product, services and technology, and explore sectors beyond FMGC.
Cartona’s round was led by Silicon Badia, with participation from SANAD Fund for MSME, Arab Bank Accelerator, Sunny Side Ventures, Global Ventures and Kepple Ventures.
FinTechs Tune Up Payments to Keep Small Trucking Companies Humming
It’s been a tough year for smaller players in the trucking industry, those owner-operators and small fleets who might be operating as few as one or two trucks. First there was the spike in the price of diesel, which has only recently started to come down. Then there was the lowering of truck rates, which cooled off from the highs of last year.
CloudTrucks offers truck owners a business management solution that helps them generate revenue, manage cash flow, lower costs, and stay compliant and safe. With its CT Cash offering, the company pays drivers within two hours of completing a job, rather than the industry standard 30 days.
CloudTrucks added CT Credit, a Visa credit card for owner-operators and small fleets, July 6.
B2B Buy Now, Pay Later Rewriting the Rules of Trade Finance
The question of how buy now, pay later (BNPL) point-of-sale credit can migrate to B2B channels is a relatively new twist on a very old concept — net payment terms for business-to-business (B2B) purchases.
Perhaps debatably, B2B is the original BNPL use case. It’s still how most B2B purchases are made — net 30, 60, 90-day terms — so what does BNPL do to improve on this arrangement?
In a conversation with PYMNTS, Sam Graziano, EVP of Amount, gave a few compelling reasons, saying, “B2B spend is probably one of the biggest financial services markets in the world. It happens in-store, it happens through salespeople, it happens online, it happens cross border. Ultimately, what businesses want is cash flow flexibility. That can come in the form of what looks like a BNPL format similar to the consumer space,” but with key differences.
Big Brands Replacing Membership, Loyalty Programs With NFTs
Hang, a B2B startup, is using NFTs to innovate loyalty programs for a number of big brands. The firm’s clients include Budweiser, Bleacher Report, Pinkberry, Bonnaroo and Superfly. Hang co-founder and CEO Matt Smolin added that loyalty programs are often designed with a tier-based system: the more a customer buys something, the more benefits they get.
He said NFTs can give companies a way to incentivize users to level up in the program and “actually appreciate the value of the asset that they own and can later be resold on [NFT] marketplaces,” the report noted.
CNBC notes there could be risk to this approach, as critics have called NFTs potentially harmful to the environment because of the energy they use. Also, there’s a lot of crime and theft that surrounds the digital tokens.
HDBank and Unilever Vietnam Partner to Finance Distributors, Retailers
HDBank and Unilever Vietnam will be working together to optimize supply chains and add to service quality, a press release said Saturday (July 23). HDBank is one of the biggest banks in Vietnam, and Unilever Vietnam is a big consumer goods company there.
HDBank offering financing and banking services to distributors and retailers, who will also benefit from Unilever’s strategies and incentives.
The release said customers will be able to make cashless payments on their smartphones with HDBank’s app and QR Pay technology. HDBank’s advanced security and smart statement methods improve business’s financial management while minimizing risk. There will also be loans at preferential interest rates, with no collateral, to ease merchants’ cash flow problems.
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