Latest / Leaders In Payments / The Signal: Untangling B2B Payments: Why Complexity Persists & How to Fix It with Fauwaz Hussain, Global Payments | Episode 465

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The Signal: Untangling B2B Payments: Why Complexity Persists & How to Fix It with Fauwaz Hussain, Global Payments | Episode 465 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Signal, powered by the Leaders in Payments Podcast, where we are cutting through the noise to reveal what truly matters in payments and fintech.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Greg Myers.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is a very special guest, Fawaz Hussein, Senior Director B2B Partnerships and Strategy at Global Payments.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, Fawaz, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Greg, for having me here.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, this episode is part of our signal series where we're cutting through the noise to reveal what truly matters in payments in FinTech.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're diving into the world of B2B payments and accounts receivable, an area that still creates friction for many businesses despite years of innovation on the B2C side.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about how B2B payments differ from B2C, where cash flow breaks down in the AR process, and how better integration and automation can reduce friction between buyers and sellers.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll also explore where B2B payments are headed and what leaders should be thinking about next.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, Fawaz, before we dive deep into this topic, can you walk us through your professional journey and how you got to global payments?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, absolutely.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Greg.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my journey started about 19 years ago, right after I graduated, I joined a very, very small startup called Notice Technology.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a small payment software company that developed an integrated payment solution for a one-of-legacy Microsoft ERP system called Great Plains.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a small company, and all it did was a credit card processing for Great Plains.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I started, and I have worn many hats.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I started from the engineering side, but shortly after that I joined or took over sales, created a partner program, and then we started to grow the company.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, fast forward a few years, the year is around 2013 and 14, when PCI compliance started becoming a big challenge.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We created, and at that point, most systems were still on-premise, specifically Great Plains.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: One of the biggest challenges businesses had was how do you store payment information securely in an on-premise solution?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's when we came up with an idea of a cloud-based payment storage system, and we called it PayFabric.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: PayFabric was officially launched in 2015 and around 2016, actually.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then that became very, very popular.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: We got some attention from the market, and two years later, we were acquired by a company called Evo, Evo Payments.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Evo was a mid-sized company, and this was the first software company that they acquired.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is essentially Evo's step into B2B payments, tech enabled payments.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, I was given charge to run all sales and partnerships for the B2B software side of the business for Evo.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And my first marching order was to grow the business outside of Microsoft.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we started covering all Microsoft platforms, not just Great Plains, all the legacy on-premise, as well as the cloud, the newer modern cloud Microsoft platforms, as well as we started growing into SAP, Acumatica, Sage, Oracle, some other ERP solutions.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then 2023 is when Global Payments acquired Evo.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And since then I have become part of, I joined Global Payments.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And now in my current role, I oversee all the B2B payments for global payments partnerships, all the B2B payments partnerships for global payments, as well as I manage relationship with some of these ERP publishers.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk a little bit more about ERP publishers and integrations later on.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my professional career.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So been with the company for 19 years, and here we are today.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks so much for sharing that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So most of our audience will be familiar with global payments, but if you don't mind for context, can you give us kind of that 50,000-foot overview of the company and maybe kind of where your team fits into that broader organization?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Sure, absolutely.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So Global Payments is, if not the largest, one of the largest payment companies globally now.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about payments, Global Payments does all kinds of payments.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you break it down, so first of all, you can break payments down into payments in and payments out, incoming payments and outgoing payments.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So primarily focuses on incoming payments.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And now in incoming payments, what we call accounts receivables, you can further break it down into two types card present, card not present, meaning in-person payments or online payments.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Global Payments as a company services all those types of payments channels in different various verticals.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: My team is specifically responsible for the B2B payments side of the business, and specifically in B2B, what we call tech enabled payments.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what is tech enabled?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Tech enabled payments is payments that is integrated into a technology like a SaaS software or an ERP software.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's essentially where I sit now in part of Global Payments on the B2B payment side.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well to set the stage when people hear B2B payments, many of them still think maybe it's just a slower version of B2C.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: But from your perspective, how does the B2B payments ecosystem fundamentally differ from B2C, especially when it comes to that accounts receivable part?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they're not wrong.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, perception is like, okay, B2B is slower than B2C, but in all reality, that's a little bit of an older way to think.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I would say the fundamental difference between a B2B and B2C is the vast majority of B2B payments are card not present.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Versus, I mean, B2C have a lot of card not present too, like uh e-commerce, Amazon, and whatnot.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But B2B payments are typically payments that are made via like uh online or direct bank deposits.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, as opposed to business to consumer, is a payment that goes from one business to another business, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with that, when you're making a payment from one business to another business, that can lead into many complex payment cycles.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You offer in a B2B world, there's a very big concept of payment terms.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like seeing B2C, you go to a store, you pay whatever you want to buy, you pay up front and you make a payment, swipe your card, and get the goods.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: In a B2B payment, typically you might have a credit history with that company, you might have some payment terms.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that business that you're working with might give you 30, 60, 90 days of flexibility to make that payment.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, which essentially leads into like later collection, so not right at the time of placing an order, but you know, collecting later.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But then with that, also leads into many, sometimes there's a lot of complex payment cycles.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I just mentioned like when do you collect payment?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are you collecting payment at the time of taking an order?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you collecting payment once the goods are shipped?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing some sort of a deposit ahead of time?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you doing like a pre-authorization and delayed capture?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of those are some of the key components of uh B2B payments.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And also, B2B tend to have larger volume.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just talking about larger transaction size, like larger dollar amount, but also a larger number of payments.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as a business, you could have many payments coming throughout the day.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, order to cash becomes very crucial in B2B business and collecting payments at what cycle of sale is vastly different than what it is in the B2C.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you've spent much of your career, as you mentioned, focusing on optimizing AR processes.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: What are the biggest pain points you consistently see businesses struggle with today when it comes to collecting payments?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would say one of the biggest pain points is typically interrupted cash flow because of timely collection.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So as I mentioned, B2B businesses tend to offer payment terms, but then we all know cash flow is directly connected to your company's health.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So despite allowing your customers or your merchants an ability to pay 30, 60, 90 days later, you would ideally want to collect payments on time.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: You would want to collect ahead of time.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why sometimes businesses do offer incentives to pay right away or just faster, right?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So interrupted cash flow is probably one of the biggest pain points.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say that if you don't make it easy for your customers to pay, meaning that if you don't allow them things like payment links or customer payment portals, then that will directly lead to delayed cash.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So make it easy, allow faster, which essentially making it easy will make it faster collection.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then another part of that is also security.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's another big pain point that a lot of companies face.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, Greg, uh majority business, and I don't have statistics right in front of me, but still numerous studies have done that shows how many businesses still rely on manual payment collection.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you do things manually, that essentially can lead to many security-related risks and many data compliance-related issues, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So lack of integration is another big challenge, which leads to lack of security, but also leads to what we call disconnected systems.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say integration plays a huge, huge role in modern AR.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's basically also a biggest pain point that businesses face, specifically into the B2B AR ecosystem.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a great segue to the next question, where, as you just said, integration plays a huge role in modern AR.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So how important is it for B2B payments to be embedded directly into those ERP systems?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned some of them at the beginning.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what tends to break down when payments are more treated like a standalone function?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely, Greg.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, integration is not a luxury or nice to have anymore.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's must.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely something that everyone is expecting.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh lack of integration can cause into many, many, many issues.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about security-related issues, we talked about data compliance, we talked about data integrity, reporting, there's so many other issues that it leads into.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what I always say I'm like bridging the gap between your payment system and your back-end office is incredibly, incredibly important.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you are still collecting payments manually, meaning you have somebody who is taking payments over the phone, manually keying it in a like a virtual terminal or some sort of a website to run a payment, and then going to your accounting system, figuring out which payment goes to which invoice, manually keying entering the data.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: All of that can cause a lot of problems.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, think about it, like you know, typos, manual data entry makes data processing very, very slow.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And another issue related to that is like, you know, you have disconnected departments, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like imagine if you paid your bill and now you need to call their service center to receive service, but the person on the support desk will say, Hey, Greg, your account is still outstanding.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't service you.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I already made payment this morning.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just because that payment wasn't reflected and it's not connected and it's not updated in the system, you're unable to receive uh service.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we call like department silos.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine a lot of that can cause a workflow disturbance, but also reporting reconciliation issues too, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then also think about a modern business.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about modern AR.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: In a modern business, you have omni-channel, you have many different channels where you're doing business.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing business through an e-commerce platform.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could be doing business, you might have field sales reps who have field service apps on their phone that they're taking orders while they're on the field.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: You could have some sort of a service tool or a billing software or some sort of a another third-party application.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you tie if each one of those systems is running payments on its own, reconciliation will be a nightmare, and updating your GL in the back end would be a night nightmare.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's all connected to modern AR, but also I will keep talking about security.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Security is something that oftentimes we don't pay as much attention to.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: PCI compliance is a lot more strict than it was a few years ago.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: There is still a misunderstanding about PCI compliance.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: People think, oh, PCI compliance is only applicable to massive retailers like Target or Walmart or someone like Amazon.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: PCI compliance is applicable to every single business that takes credit card payment.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you take card payment, you are responsible for securing that data.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you are responsible to be PCI compliant.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And having disconnected payment system, when your payment system is not communicating with your back-end systems, then PCI becomes a nightmare because it would be very hard for you to prove that you're doing things securely.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So security, lack of integration, I would say those are the two probably biggest areas that plays a huge role when it comes to modernizing accounts receivables.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as with any business, cash flow is a challenge, and especially for B2B organizations.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: So where do you see the biggest opportunity for improving cash flow by modernizing AR and the payments processes?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell You're right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we talked about this.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Cash flow is everything for a business.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Cash flow is a constant challenge too.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I say this very, very, very simple fix.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Make it easy for your customers to pay.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Again, numerous studies have shown that if you make it easy for your customers to pay, the chances are they will pay on time.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Set up a basic, basic thing you can do is set up a self-service portal where they can make payments on their own.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine put yourself in this situation, right?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Would you ever sign up for a cell phone service or like any service that says that, hey Greg, the only way to pay is like by calling me during my business hours to make a payment over the phone or writing a check to me, the chances are you'll think twice before doing business with that company.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: B2B is no different than that, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: B2B is essentially the same.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're also humans on the other end, and they're expecting you to allow some sort of an online self-service option for them to go ahead and make payments at their time, at their leisure, not in your business hours, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you make it easy for your customers, then the chances are they're gonna pay quicker, it's gonna be faster.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, like enable or try to adapt some sort of uh put some sort of a reminder process, right?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is very easy now to embed technology that can automatically set reminders to your customers, whoever has either outstanding balances or a payment that's about to be due, just a friendly reminder, one week from now your payment is due.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we all have busy lives, specifically in the B2B world.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, sometimes it's good to have a gentle reminder that, hey, your payment is about to be due.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Allow them to store payment information on file.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of businesses still have uh don't do that, but mostly because they don't have a secure method of storing payment information on file.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of businesses think that, hey, if I ask, if I store credit card on file, now I have to go through all this PCI compliance and all that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: All true, but there are ways to do it simply, in a simpler manner, in an easy manner.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you allow them to store payment information on file, which will also then can enable you to run automatic payments.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: As a business, if you can allow your customer to save a credit card on file, then I can offer the business and say that, hey, would you like me to run this payment automatically?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like so this way you don't have to run it when it's due.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Automatic payments is the fastest, fastest way to get paid on time.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then also offer multiple payment methods, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like another issue with at least I see people think of B2B, people think of checks, paper checks, or bank transfers.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be surprised how popular credit card payments are.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of B2B businesses want to use credit cards for many, many reasons.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the biggest reasons is the adaption of procurement systems or automatic AP systems, accounts payable systems.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there are so many companies that use accounts payable systems.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So before you are allowed to buy something, you might have to go through a procurement process and approval process.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of those processes are automated.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And once you are approved from your company to make a purchase, you will be issued what they call like virtual card.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So virtual card is becoming increasingly popular now.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So now you will have a credit card that will be used that will be issued to make that payment.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go ahead and buy that goods or that services.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is becoming incredibly popular in the B2B world.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, credit card payments are becoming popular.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't allow your customers to pay by credit card, then you're missing out on payments.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like we talked about cash flow is a challenge to improve that cash flow, make it easy for your customers to pay, allow self-service payment options, send them reminders, allow them to run payments automatically.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then also I would say that if you allow them to pay using multiple methods like credit cards, ACH, and you know, don't forget about credit cards, they are very important.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Okay.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you work closely, as you mentioned, with ERP publishers, VARs and ISVs.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So from what you're seeing, what do these partners expect today from a B2B payments provider that maybe they didn't expect, say five years ago?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, 100%.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: So tech-enabled payments, we talked about integration-wise is so important, right?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now any business, every business, if not every, then I would say 92.99.999% of the businesses use some sort of an accounting system in the back.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a small micro business, you could be using QuickBooks.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you know if you're a little bit of a little bigger business, uh then you could be using some mid-tier ERPs.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a large business, you could be using a large ERP.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you're using accounting system, an ERP system, everything we talked about is integration is super important.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So meaning that your payment system should be tied into that accounting or ERP system.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these publishers, these ERP publishers like SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, they all have what we call like marketplace.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like your cell phone.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your cell phone has an app store, you can download apps.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're using one of these ERPs, you have an app store of many business applications that you can use to enhance your productivity, right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So one of those apps are like payment apps.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So ERP publishers expect you that if you are a payment company, you should go through their process of getting your app certified, endorsed, and be published on their app store.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, VARs, VARs are those resellers of those ERPs.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are thousands of authorized resellers of these ERPs across across the world, but you know, in North America as well, where they're the ones who sell or deploy that ERP to the business, and that the business will ask them, they're the trusted advisor, they will ask them that, hey, do you have any payment system that this ERP works with?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: VARs expect that your app should be part of that ecosystem, that part of that app store before they can recommend that to their customers.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then you also ask about ISV.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So many software companies out there, specifically in the B2B world, they all want integration into the back into the back end offices.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they also expect that, hey, if I partner with this payment company, is this payment company working with the accounting systems in the back end to update those payments?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's becoming a must requirement too.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So ERP publishers have already recognized that.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: They already saw that VARs and ISVs and everybody wants payments to be embedded into their ERP.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that also opens up a challenge for these ERPs.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Greg, in the very, very beginning, when you asked me my career, I mentioned that I started my career working in this one mid-market ERP that was all on premise, right?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the challenge was how do you store the credit card data?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we came up with an idea of Pay Fabric to store the credit card data on the cloud, right?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So now that mindset is still there where ERPs are like, okay, well, every business wants payments to be integrated to ERP.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's given.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: But then now I am, as an ERP publisher, I'm exposed to all these PCI-related issues and security-related concerns that that, hey, uh, because also, sorry, one step back, all these ERPs are now moving towards cloud, meaning that they will offer you a cloud-based solution, meaning that they will be hosting the ERP for you, meaning that they're hosting your data, which basically means that now you want me to host your credit card data to you.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So as you can imagine, that these ERPs are becoming more and more careful about who is creating these payment apps.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, creating an app in general is super simple.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's AI like that can create an app for you.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: But can your app be created in a manner that number one, it gets certified by PCI Security Council?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, then ERP will vet it out and will go through very rigorous testing to make sure there's no holes and no security leaks and it's okay to be published in my app store.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the basic requirement for PSPs, payment software providers like us.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, we have to make sure our app is always constantly up to date with PCI compliance regulations.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, we have to continuously make sure that our app is certified with these ERPs and be published.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what these ERPs started doing is they started creating a closed network now because there were thousands of payment providers.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all of these ERPs, specifically SAP and Sage, has already started doing where they created a closed ecosystem of providers.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: So they will hand pick only a few, very, very handful of payment companies that are trustworthy and reputable, big, large enough where they can be confident that, hey, they can, we can work with them and will only allow them to be in their part of their ecosystem.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: So where I'm going with this is that making these apps is easy, but going through compliance and certification process is incredibly challenging and very, very demanding.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And ERP publishers know that, and they know that all of their merchants want it, all of their partners want it.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they're becoming more and more strict about who is allowed to play in that space.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's becoming very, very important that we continue to build that relationship with those ERPs and continue to work closely with them because, like I said, without that integration, B2B space is incomplete.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you've mentioned security and compliance a couple of times, and it's very good reason for mentioning it, because it's often cited as reasons that B2B payments move slowly.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So how can companies modernize their AR and payments processes while still meeting the strict requirements that you know our industry requires?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, well, we talked about it, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: So number one, obviously move to cloud.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cloud is safe.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that, as I mentioned, there are thousands of payment provider software out there, but only a very handful of them have gone through that rigorous testing process and compliance and certification process.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to do your due diligence to make sure that you're not you're not just going by Word, but you're doing your actual check to make sure that these are actually certified by these ERPs and published on their app stores.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: If your app is not published on the App Store, then don't even bother.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, it's a that's so it's a number one, like move to cloud and to a certified solution.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But secondly, from the functional perspective, allow your customers to make payment.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just outsource it to your customers.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let your customers handle it.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Enable your customers to take charge of their payments.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I speak with a either business owner or a CFO or a department head for accounting, one of the biggest suggestions I give them is enforce a policy that you don't take, or we as an organization will never take credit card over the phone, period.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Greg, one of the questions I ask merchants is like, hey, Greg, like you accept payments from your customers?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, so how do you take that credit card information or payment information?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you don't say that you take it over the email, that's the worst thing you can do.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: But taking over the phone is not right either.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: People think taking credit card over the phone is okay.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most phone calls are recorded for quality and training purposes or whatever purpose.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you read a credit card number over the recorded line, that's a big mistake.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope all the listeners over here know that we call call centers sometimes, and if somebody takes, asks you for a credit card over the phone, tell them that, hey, is this call being recorded?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want to leave my credit card number on a recorded line.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Enable customer portals where the customer themselves can go.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are things like payment links where you can send a link to their cell phone to collect payments.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So part of our solution that PayFabric, we when we deploy that in uh companies, though those businesses, then first enforce, okay, no more, we don't take credit card over the phone.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of asking for a credit card number, we just ask for your email address or even your cell phone number.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we can just send you a text message.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And on your text, you will get a link to click on it, make a payment, and the payment will be processed and updated back into your accounting system all automatically.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So enforce those type of policies because let's see, after COVID specifically, everybody's working from home now.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't want like your accounting clerk who's working from home, taking credit card number over the phone, writing on a piece of paper.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the things that you should pay attention to when you're modernizing your AR, when you're streamlining your collection processes, and most importantly, when you're securing your collection processes.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Another question that I always get, they're like, oh, for Oaz, you talked about certification, the compliance and uh certification with your ERPs.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if I deploy my software, does that mean I'm automatically PCI compliant?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to worry about anything?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can give you the safest, most secure product in the world.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have staff who is still asking customers to send in credit card number over the email or read it over the phone, I cannot handle that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or somebody writing on a post-it note and giving it to their accounting department to run the payment.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: None of that is in my control, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So as a business, you still have to go through your own process of uh cleaning up this process.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then embedding a payment technology that is connected, integrated to your back-end system that allows customer-facing payments, that is the surest, quickest, fastest way to get to PCI compliant.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you implement a solution like this that we talked about today, and if you modernize your AR, then PCI compliance becomes super easy too.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So your scope of PCI compliance is reduces and it becomes a lot more simpler, quicker, faster for you to be PCI compliant.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And be PCI compliant, please.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's very, very important.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something just that's just a luxury anymore.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a must.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You should be PCI compliant.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, absolutely.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a must for sure.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple of final questions.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So looking ahead, what trends do you believe will have the biggest impact on the future of B2B payments and accounts receivable, say over the next three to five years?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Three to five years.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, my number one question is no surprise to any anyone listening.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can expect to see a lot more AI and machine learning driven automation, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So things like predictive payments, things like predictive cash flow, things like reporting insights, a lot of them reconciliation, cash application, a lot of them would be AI driven, machine driven.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: So expect to see a lot of AI penetrating into the payment ecosystem.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Up until now, recent, there are still businesses that have their doubts on security of AI, but I think now that we're entering, we have already entered 2026, we're a little bit beyond that.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have uh AI built into your roadmap, you're missing out.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: So expect to see that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: In three to five years, embedded payments, embedded finance, it will become must.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is must already, and you will increasingly see adaption on that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was a study done by Visa, and they talked about in 2026 more than 80% of your workforce will be digital native.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And digital natives are people that have never seen the world without internet.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they these people will be in your key decision-making positions.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like these will be your controllers, your CFOs, your CEOs.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for them, having a tech-enabled embedded payment is uh payments that are integrated into your ERPs or SaaS platform will be must.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, so a couple more.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about, you know, you're gonna see AI, we're gonna see embedded payments.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: You will see a little bit of uh blockchain, stablecoins, some programmable money.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: API-driven technology will be more important than ever.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: API first, having it, because we talked about there's gonna be so many tech-enabled payments is becoming big.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: You businesses have many, many SaaS plat, like different technology that they use to optimize their workflows and their business processes.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So having a payment technology that has an open API that can connect into your e-commerce, into your fulfillment solution, your warehouse management, your ERP, any type of back-end system would be important.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Advanced security is something that you're gonna see more and more PCI because there are gonna be a lot more AI-powered fraud detection.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Visa and MasterCard already announced with their CEDP mandate that they're gonna be using AI to check on that level two, level three data to make sure that all that data is accurate or uh people are not just putting false data in.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's gonna be AI used to detect fraud.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I did talk about this earlier as well and expect to see more and more credit card usage because single-use virtual cards are becoming increasingly popular.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: With that, you will see massive, massive adoption increase in credit card payments as well.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as we wrap up the show, for the B2B and payments leaders that are listening today, what's the one key takeaway you hope they walk away with when it comes to modernizing accounts receivable and B2B payments?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some takeaways.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I talked about so much about customer-enabled payments.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about your payments to be integrated with your back-end accounting system.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those are important.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say one most important key takeaway is also to pay attention to how who you choose as a payment partner as well.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because as I mentioned, there are many, many, many payment softwares out there.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if you picture the payment ecosystem, there's so many different players that could be in between, like a software that process payment, a gateway, a processor, interchange acquire.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Having a one-stop solution is definitely the safest bet.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: That would probably would be my one of my biggest key takeaways from this conversation.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: B is that do your due diligence, pay attention to things like compliance, regulations, certifications, and embedded technology.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Without embedded technology, then you're missing out in quite a bit.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Fawaz, for being here.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know your time is very valuable.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So again, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for our listeners to listening to this.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And until the next story.