B2B Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL): The evolving ecosystem

The payments ecosystem is at its most transformative stage today. It will only get better, and technology, as always, will continue to play a pivotal role. Tech-driven solutions with clear competitive advantages are poised to be the solutions that will not only bring down the market risk for businesses but also spur their growth to the next level.

Large enterprises should seize the opportunities that lay before them to bring about the much needed transformation to the entire supply chain ecosystem. Technology and access to capital, no doubt, are the drivers of future growth.

BNPL for Business to Business

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is a technology orchestra in play with every stakeholder doing their bit to deliver an engaging experience. BNPL for the consumer segment is fast emerging as a force to reckon with.

B2B BNPL, on the other hand, is at a very nascent stage. Here, financing still requires tiresome processes and underwriting of risks are very much discretionary. In addition, the whole payment process is driven by laborious paperwork. Not to mention the multiple channels of communication, multiple systems of engagement and the pain involved in manual reconciliations.

With the varied business dynamics and the sectoral behaviour deeply connected to the macro economic conditions, the orchestration involves a deeper engagement at all levels. Inherent risks, past experiences, and other such factors are critical factors to be considered.

Technology at the Forefront

As businesses get ready to embrace technology, they are testing data driven automated credit access and payment methods to bring in more efficiency to their transactions. It has been my firm belief all along that improvisation, innovation, finesse and efficiency are delivered by technology in every domain. Look at what UPI has done to the payments ecosystem.

It is imperative that BNPL for B2B powers and empowers the future of the largest contributors to GDP growth of the world’s economy. Large enterprises and their supply chain ecosystem don’t have an option but to adopt technology. Economic upsides and downturns unravel distinct opportunities. Inflationary pressures are temporary, and in contexts like these, access to capital becomes even more important.

B2B Transactions as They Exist Today

Enterprises have begun to understand the relevance of technology interventions. Many stand alone tools are being adopted to bring in efficiency. Enterprises provide credit by compulsion or compel distributors to avail credit. Affordable credit is still a distant dream, when financial Institutions do not even have access to qualitative and quantitative data on an ongoing basis.

Broken processes and primitive payment methodologies are preventing growth and digitalisation and platform approaches are almost non existent.

Future of B2B Transactions – Opportunity

While there are multiple B2B financing models emerging, embedded B2B BNPL payment methods seem set to lead from the front when it comes business-to-business transactions in the near future.

These tech-driven platforms will bring in the requisite infrastructure to help reduce the cashflow burdens of enterprises and their entire supply chain ecosystem. They will eliminate time-cosuming processes for good and make the credit related decision-making processes transparent, faster and easier.

Digitalised processes, integrated payment models, score driven underwriting approach, secure transactions, insurable risks, compliant ecosystem and last but not the least affordable access to technology and credit will be future of B2B transactions.

Guest contributor Raghu Subramanian is the Global CEO of actyv.ai, an easy to adapt enterprise SaaS low-code no-code platform. Any opinions expressed in this article are strictly that of the author.