Today in B2B: Virtual Cards Boast Transparency Benefit; CloudTrucks Debuts Visa Card

Today in B2B payments, nine out of 10 financial institutions offer account validation to corporate clients, while Spryker and Wilo team up to streamline B2B purchasing. Plus, technology and APIs bridge the communications gap for CFOs and engineering teams.

89% of Financial Institutions Offer Corporate Clients Account Validation

Some of the most common challenges that businesses face when making supplier payments are reconciling invoices, inability to offer supplier portals, working capital management and slow underwriting.

These problems are cited by 42%, 42%, 34% and 33%, respectively, of businesses, according to “Meeting the Challenge of Payments Modernization,” a PYMNTS and FIS collaboration based on a survey of 311 executives from financial institutions that manage assets in excess of $500 million.

Other common challenges include lack of payment choice, spend management, real-time cash flow management and data not provided across all areas of the organization. These issues are cited by 31%, 29%, 26% and 26%, respectively.

US Companies Cite Transparency as Biggest Benefit of Virtual Cards

Fifty-seven percent of businesses that use virtual cards say that one of the benefits of that payment method is greater transactional detail, according to “Accelerating the Time to Realized Revenue,” a PYMNTS and Mastercard collaboration based on a survey of 400 corporate executives in the U.S. and Canada.

The U.S. firms responding to the survey were especially interested in transparency, ranking it first among 10 benefits, with 66% of them saying the improved transaction details benefited their business. Canadian firms ranked this benefit third, behind faster payments and secure transactions, and tied with improved cash management. Only 40% of Canadian firms cited greater transactional detail as a benefit of using virtual cards.

Among the three industries included in the survey, healthcare firms that use virtual cards stand out as being the most likely to have benefited from improved transaction details. That benefit was cited by 69% of healthcare firms, 55% of manufacturing firms and 43% of transportation, logistics and shipping firms.

Commerce Platform Spryker Partners With Wilo on B2B Purchasing

Digital commerce platform Spryker announced Wednesday (July 6) that it was working with pump systems manufacturer Wilo to develop a B2B purchasing platform for its customers.

The company said its partner, diva-e, will offer consulting services to support the creation of a business model, along with leading the end-to-end platform implementation.

Trucking Management Firm CloudTrucks Debuts Visa Card

Trucking business management solution CloudTrucks has launched CT Credit, a Visa business card designed to help small fleets and owner-operators track and pay expenses.

CT Credit is geared toward customers who may not qualify for traditional credit cards, letting them get the funding they need to move goods, build their credit and manage cash flow, the San Francisco company said in a news release Wednesday (July 6).

CT Credit advances funds, giving owner-operators and small fleets more control over their operating expenses and cash flow. The card will be available to use immediately.

CFOs and Engineering Teams Tap Tech, APIs to Bridge ‘Communications Gap’

Modern Treasury co-founder and CEO Dimitri Dadiomov told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in a recent interview that the patchwork nature of banks’ and enterprises’ payment operations infrastructure is hampering the ability to track payment flows; as a result, companies miss out on opportunities to grow their core operations.

The conversation came against the backdrop of a recent State of Payment Operations survey conducted by Harris Poll, which revealed that 61% of financial decision makers said payment operations take too long from start to finish. There are challenges embedded in doing business today, regardless of company vertical or size of enterprise, he said.

A tricky balancing act unfolds: CFOs and financial executives need to be able to track and understand how business is progressing on a day-to-day basis. At the same time, they want staffing time and related costs tied to that visibility to be as efficient as possible.