Digital transformation is sweeping the entire B2B payments ecosystem.
PYMNTS recently sat down with Gary A. Vecchiarelli, CPA and CFO of CleanSpark, to discuss the evolution of business-to-business (B2B) and how B2B crypto can be seen as a payment that represents the leading edge of industry innovation.
“If you pay with cryptocurrencies, this is an extra step,” says Vecchiarelli. “But the benefits outweigh that.”
Near-instantaneous or real-time payments (RTP) across the blockchain are less costly to process than wiring funds for businesses and significantly less time consuming than waiting for ACH payments to occur .
“Transit is definitely better than the current banking system,” Vecchiarelli told PYMNTS. “Press a button to get the cipher and get the confirmation. It’s as simple as that.”
Need for expanded use
B2B technology has advanced rapidly in recent years, but the efficiency of your business depends on your network of vendors and the technology stack of your partners. As a result, many organizations investing in processes and systems find themselves still dealing with the same old problems.
Problems on either side of a B2B transaction are generally due to asymmetries between preferred payment methods and the operational friction associated with consolidating these receivables.
Vecchiarelli believes that developing tools that offer a variety of payment methods in an all-in-one dashboard is a natural evolution. “Accessing one dashboard and paying multiple bills using one or more methods is the most efficient for businesses. What solutions will emerge in the next year or two? I’m really looking forward to it. It looks like tools are being developed that can offer a variety of payment methods, including crypto. Absolutely.”
The flexibility to use preferred payments on both sides of the transaction is a fundamental value proposition of any all-in-one platform.
Vecchiarelli told PYMNTS that he believes the biggest obstacle to using cryptocurrencies for B2B payments is the fairly shallow utilization of digital assets across the current business environment.
Given the turmoil that has rocked the cryptocurrency industry since the fall of FTX, CFOs may seem skeptical about resorting to using alternative asset classes as important as an organization’s payment processes. That makes sense.
“With recent events, I think there may be a bit more of a ‘monkey sea, monkey do’ situation. [the adoption of crypto payments]says Vecchiarelli. “People will wait for someone else to do it first.”
Establishing trust
There are risks with cryptocurrency that need to be addressed as cryptocurrency adoption spreads from avant-garde to cavalry.
“My personal opinion is that there are great parallels between these 20,000 cryptocurrencies and the dotcom era,” Vecchiarelli told PYMNTS. “At the end of the day, this is a race for which coin will survive. Trusts are not widely adopted in many of them, especially if they are not decentralized. All 20,000 justify their use.” Unless we can, we are probably just looking at Bitcoin and Ethereum where it makes sense from a business, operational and even fiduciary perspective.”
Most Mainstreet businesses operate in a standard risk environment, reinforced by customer-knowledge processes and long-term controls. Crypto doesn’t have that.
“The industry is not yet regulated,” says Vecchiarelli. “As CFO, we choose between having very robust controls and risk assessments, or trying to operate quickly. there is.”
B2B blockchain transactions, at least those using decentralized cryptocurrencies, add transparency and accountability to the payment process. “Even if there are auditors, they can also verify transactions independently. , and procedures to take advantage of these improvements to enhance the quality and strength of our business operations and transactions.”
It’s an exciting time for CFOs as operational processes are being integrated into increasingly useful dashboards. Both on and off blockchain, a new age of payments-focused technology is being built, and there are a range of opportunities that executives can take advantage of as they look to grow, evolve, and ultimately transform their businesses. increase.
How Consumers Pay Online Using Stored Credentials
While some consumers are turning to storing their payment credentials with merchants for convenience, security concerns keep others hesitant. In “How We Pay Digitally: Stored Credentials Edition,” in collaboration with Amazon Web Services, PYMNTS surveyed her 2,102 US consumers to analyze consumer dilemmas and how merchants overcome holdouts clarified.
