SMBs, AI, and FinTech Partnerships Headline This Week in B2B

Businesses of all sizes are finding themselves at the crossroads of innovation and tradition.

And they are choosing to embrace innovation rather than stand still and fall behind. In a era marked by rapid technological advancements and evolving regulation, companies of all sizes must adapt to stay competitive.

PYMNTS is tracking the latest advances shaping business-to-business (B2B) transactions, from the importance of small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), to the power of FinTech partnerships.

SMBs and the Push for Growth

Small businesses have long been the backbone of the global economy. Recent developments highlight the importance of this segment, with large financial institutions and technology firms focusing more intently on SMBs.

For instance, Citigroup is reportedly looking to increase its revenue by adding smaller clients, aiming to double its commercial banking business. Known for serving only the largest clients, the bank has expanded its focus to include SMBs with annual revenues between $10 million and $3 billion, news broke Wednesday (Aug. 28).

Also Wednesday, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Sezzle and embedded finance platform Liberis teamed to help American small businesses get funded. The partnership is centered around Sezzle Capital, designed to help SMBs in the U.S. and eventually Canada get financing without sacrificing equity.

And when it comes to reimagining SMB payments and turning them into a growth engine, Lorenzo Soriano de Teresa, senior vice president, merchant services at American Express (Amex) has just one word of advice.

“Automate, automate, automate,” he told PYMNTS during a recent conversation centered on findings from the latest “B2B and Digital Payments Tracker® Series,” which was produced by PYMNTS Intelligence in collaboration with American Express. “The right automation solution, or the right partner, can help businesses move past their current payments concerns to see tangible benefits.”

Elsewhere, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule requiring lenders to gather demographic information about small business borrowers has leapt another legal hurdle after a federal judge rejected a banking industry-backed challenge that argued that the rule’s data collection method was flawed, it was reported Monday (Aug. 26).

AI’s Expanding Role

AI is far from the futuristic concept it once was. The technology is now a reality that is reshaping industries across the board.

Nvidia on Tuesday (Aug. 27) introduced pretrained, customizable AI workflows that will provide a “jump start” for enterprise developers creating AI applications using one or more AI agents. “The enterprise AI wave is here,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in the release.

On Wednesday, Ramsey Masri, CEO at Ceres AI, chatted with PYMNTS’ CEO Karen Webster about how the use of AI in agriculture has blossomed into a global movement, revolutionizing how crops are grown, financed and insured.

And unions in the U.K. want the country’s banks to be ready to retain workers displaced by AI. At the U.K.’s Trades Union Congress next month, labor organizations will call on lenders, insurance and accounting firms to be prepared to assist millions of workers whose jobs could be impacted by AI.

Elsewhere, spend management company Coupa said on Monday that it has added more than 100 AI-powered innovations to its platform.

Digital Transformation of B2B Payments

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Getting Paid: Digital Payments for Improving Cash Flow and Customer Experience” examined how digital payments are reshaping accounts receivable (AR), offering insights into reducing days sales outstanding (DSO) and building stronger business relationships.

According to the report, 75% of organizations still use paper checks, despite their high costs and inefficiencies. The manual processing involved with checks results in slower transactions, increased potential for errors and longer DSO, hurting a company’s cash flow and financial stability.

And in that same vein, Karen Webster sat down with Tom Furr, CEO of PatientPay, and Ryan Zemmin, CEO of ClearGage, to discuss the Tuesday (Aug. 27) merger of their two companies and how the future of healthcare payments starts with getting rid of entrenched paper-based billing processes.

Still, leaving paper behind and going digital isn’t as easy as flipping a switch. PYMNTS unpacked on Wednesday why effective change management is a crucial component of B2B automation.

With the news Tuesday that Vault released new functionality for its accounts payable (AP) platform to help Canadian businesses automate vendor payments, adopting new payments technologies to remain competitive is top of mind for both B2B buyers and suppliers.

FinTech Partnerships

FinTech partnerships can help financial institutions thrive, Boost Payment Solutions Founder and CEO Dean M. Leavitt wrote in a new PYMNTS eBook, “Beyond the Horizon: How to Identify Unexpected Threats That Could Impact Your Business.”

And the marketplace is already acting on this fact. Visa has launched a cross-border business payments partnership with London-based FinTech Revolut. The collaboration, announced Tuesday (Aug. 27), allows instant card transfers for Revolut’s business customers via the Visa Direct system.

Also on Tuesday, Galileo Financial Technologies announced that it now enables its FinTech clients to connect their business customers to Mastercard’s expense reporting and analytics suite, Mastercard Smart Data.

And spend management technology is becoming table stakes in every industry, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Better Working Capital With B2B Spend Management.”

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