Today in B2B: Helping Nigerian SMBs Grow Their Companies; B2B Payment Fraud Vulnerabilities Exposed

Today in B2B payments, online catalogs are the key to business spend management and independent contractors want a better payment experience.

Plus, a look at how remote finance teams are closing the loopholes that trigger payment fraud and how Tingo and other mobile FinTech products are helping Nigerian business owners expand their reach.

73% of Independent Contractors Would Switch to Freelance Marketplace for Better Payment Experience

Almost three out of every four independent contractors (73%) who responded to a recent PYMNTS survey claimed they would abandon the freelancer marketplaces they work with for a better payment experience.

The “Digital Payments in a Digital World Playbook,” a PYMNTS and North Lane Technologies collaboration, found that freelancers are searching for work inside and outside their native countries, taking advantage of the gig economy’s inherent flexibility to find opportunities and expand professional networks. Businesses also appear to be ramping up their hiring of these professionals.

Finding payment solutions that can address freelancers’ unique cross-border payments challenges is the next step for the businesses that employ them, according to the Playbook. Workers want to be paid in their local currencies and quickly, because late payments can be financially devastating.

Mobile FinTech Products Offer Path to Financial Inclusion in Nigeria

Finding financial solutions that work for every business — no matter the size or location — can be a challenge, especially in rural Nigeria, where the financial and physical infrastructure is underdeveloped, to say the least.

Couple that with annual interest rates between 24% to 30%, and you have a recipe for keeping millions of entrepreneurs held back from expanding because they can’t find financing at any cost.

Still, Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa have high rates of mobile penetration and have used their devices as payment platforms long before Venmo came along. This adds up to a huge potential for companies, including Tingo, to offer mobile-savvy customers tech solutions that give them access to the information and funding they need to grow their businesses.

Fixing the Business Spend Management Problem Starts With an Online Catalog

Zach Garippa, CEO and co-founder of Order (formerly Negotiatus), told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster that shifting customer expectations are creating a ripple effect across businesses, down to how they order the office supplies that keep the company running.

“We’ve been spoiled on the B2C landscape,” he said. “If you’re at home and you want to buy a pen as a consumer, you just do it, and you don’t think twice about it. This cascade of workflows is confusing, and it is chaotic.”

Procurement needs innovation, Garippa said, and Order brings strategic sourcing, managing vendors and invoicing into one platform. The portal enables companies to place orders, control spend and remit payment across a single platform, creating order in the process.

Remote Finance Teams Expose B2B Payments Fraud Vulnerabilities

nsKnox Chief Operating Officer Nithai Barzam said that B2B enterprises and accounts were in hackers’ crosshairs long before the COVID-19 pandemic moved much of our lives online, and finance professionals and security teams can work together to combat looming threats.

Now, more than ever, businesses must verify credentials at onboarding, protect data at rest and protect payment transactions, he told PYMNTS in a recent interview.

More sophisticated criminals have long realized that the money in the bank actually belongs to the bank’s customers — and that businesses often have bigger accounts than individuals, so attacking the companies as they transfer large sums of money between them can offer ripe opportunities for fraud.