Even as economies have become more global, cross-border payments and receivables remain complex, costly, and difficult to reconcile for many businesses and their customers. This creates big challenges for companies with a global footprint, such as:
- Slow, unpredictable payment processing times hurt cash flow and impede growth.
- A lack of automation and transparency creates frequent manual errors in reconciliation, increasing operational costs and hurting customer satisfaction.
- Hidden fees and unpredictable FX rates cost these companies and their customers millions of dollars every year.
- The time and cost setting up international payment infrastructure and financial relationships distract from their core business.
- Country-specific regulatory restrictions and AML considerations add additional complexity and costs, especially with multiple parties involved in the transaction.
For example, look at the technology sector. In a January 2021 research report published by PYMNTS.com, US tech companies doing business internationally reported spending 2.7% of annual sales on payment processing costs and operations alone. In addition to the high costs, tech businesses also reported payment fraud and the ability to manage inbound international payments as two of their three most significant payment challenges.
A Digital Wave
The global pandemic was a driver for many changes in the business world in 2020 and payments were no exception. Businesses and their customers replaced paper and manual processes with digital alternatives out of necessity. According to McKinsey & Company, we “vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of eight weeks.”
Flywire was no exception. Even with overall payment volumes decreasing for a period of time in some of the industries we serve, overall adoption of our payment solutions increased across the board as both billers and payers looked for more friction-less methods. It appears that digital is here to stay as well. According to another McKinsey & Company survey, 75 percent of people trying digital channels for the first time indicated that they will continue their use of them when things return to "normal."
Flywire in B2B
As part of this macro trend, Flywire has continued to invest in its digital payment platform. A key focus has been around enhancing the capabilities of our offerings for B2B.
We recognize that businesses today spend too much time and money on cobbling together homegrown payment solutions, which steals meaningful resources away from revenue-generating work. So we’ve tailor-made our software to focus on key problems in organizations’ A/R workflows and handle the complexity associated with global payment infrastructure. As a result, companies do not need to go build payment solutions or develop in-house expertise - they are freed up to focus on results.
Flywire is able to help more businesses digitize and automate their international AR processes and make it easier to get paid. Leveraging the breadth and power of our global payment network and integrated software, as well as our experience processing payments for more than 2,000 clients in 240 countries and territories around the world, Flywire’s B2B solutions enhance existing banking and treasury functions and eliminate many of the operational challenges related to international payments.
"Before Flywire, our customers’ payment options were limited and we were spending too many resources on manually reconciling incoming payments,” said Michal Reznick, Head of Billing and Collections. “With Flywire, we’re enabling customers to pay in their preferred method, all while saving us money and improving the customer experience."
Leveraging our expertise in vertical payments, we’ve applied it to B2B to help enterprises easily and securely collect payments from businesses around the world while reducing their costs and increasing their operational efficiency. For businesses looking to scale their international business, the advantages are significant:
- End-to-end automation and visibility, from payment through receipt, resolves cash-flow issues and streamlines reconciliation, while seamlessly integrating with your existing enterprise systems (e.g., NetSuite, Workday, Salesforce, and more) and workflows.
- Our local market knowledge and expertise enables businesses to easily expand into new markets. And more than 300 payment methods in 130+ currencies give your customers in those markets important choices and satisfaction.
- Our significant global volume reduces payment fees and protects you from currency fluctuation, enabling big cost savings.
- We complement existing banking solutions to enhance your global treasury function.
- The platform’s robust regulatory and compliance infrastructure protect you from unnecessary complexities and risks.
- And our team of subject matter experts consistently keep you up to date on anti-money laundering, compliance, and global security requirements.
The expansion of Flywire’s B2B payments business is a huge opportunity for our company to make an even bigger difference in the world of payments in the future. We look forward to sharing our progress along the way. In the meantime, you can learn more right here on our website.