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The Challenges for Corporates of Nonbank Payments

By May 12, 2020No Comments

Treasurers in Asia discuss why regulation, technology and business models complicate nonbank payments in the B2C space.

The brave new world of nonbank payments presents both challenges and opportunities for finance teams at multinationals that have to collect cash from open platforms, a topic that garnered attention at a recent meeting of NeuGroup treasurers in Asia. 

Key issues. In the business-to-consumer (B2C) arena, the widespread use of tech intermediaries such as PayPal, WeChat and Alipay poses a problem for corporates because these open platforms are not meeting the typical segregation of duties and reconciliation protocols required by audits. The only options involve complex manual processes.

B2B dynamics. In the business-to-business space (B2B), payment service intermediaries such as TraxPay have emerged with offerings that present corporates with risks as well as opportunities, such as the ability to hold data in the cloud. Regulation, technology and business models also complicate the B2B payment landscape. The hope is that in the long run, platforms become more sophisticated. For now, there’s no immediate relief, a sore point for corporates.

Fintech and the trust Issue. Reliance on intermediaries in the B2B payments area raises a related issue facing finance teams at multinationals: How much do they trust fintechs? When it comes to payments, corporates trust banks far more than fintechs or ideas like crowdfunding. The issue is especially relevant when it comes to payment aggregators like PayPal, Stripe and Square. Corporates have to weigh the popularity of these systems and their ability to provide a neutral layer between them and a bank against the risks of giving data to businesses that don’t have to comply with bank regulations. The dependence of these systems on APIs also presents risks.

Antony Michels

Author Antony Michels

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