Why a multi-bank partner approach works best for B2B payments
From costs and fees to an ever-growing maze of processes, organisations engaged in international trade face an assortment of difficulties when navigating payments. Managing credit lines provided by multiple banks, directly or brokered by third party providers, remains fragmented and unmanageable. Legacy infrastructure and the need for multiple providers is in large part to blame.
These businesses will often have large numbers of credit lines and guarantees open at once; keeping these updated and effectively managed becomes increasingly challenging. However, this can easily be avoided with a consolidated view, provided by a single platform interfacing with each bank.
Multi-bank approach: a necessity?
Payments disruption has become the new norm. The recent pandemic has spurred FinTechs to lead change across the digital landscape at a rapid pace. And, it’s not stopping there – this continual advance in technology has allowed the industry to become more efficient, optimised and streamlined.
That’s where multi-banking comes in; it harnesses the benefits of secure data flows through APIs, seamless transactions via payment initiation services (PIS), and connects multiple bank accounts through a single interface. Essentially, the ability to consolidate and control multiple accounts through a single platform will change customer relationships with financial service providers – these will be the ‘go-to’ for customers to manage their funds.
As a result, an increasing number of corporates are choosing to consolidate their handling of these processes onto a single third-party platform – this enables them to reap the reward of man-hours, visibility, and substantial savings in bank fees and costs. This clear visibility provided by platforms with multi-bank connectivity means existing credit lines can be utilised without costly fees and time-consuming processes.
And, as the global payments industry continues to undergo significant transformation, CFOs of successful corporates involved in major trade transactions are shifting to providers who can ‘aggregate banking services’ through integrated API technology. These platforms should be supplied by a third-party with an established reputation for regulatory compliance, reliability, security and efficiency. As doing business faster within more countries can be challenging, these products are needed to make multi-banking effective, efficient and affordable.
Technology is King
With the challenges of communication protocols, different languages, and no common infrastructure, increased time-consuming manual processes are very much a reality. As corporates expand into emerging markets, a multi-channel approach is likely to become a necessity.
However, using one banking platform is a smart choice for several reasons:
- Risk management
- Worldwide coverage
- Scalability
- Flexibility
- Service availability
- Speed
- Industry knowledge
- Built-in compliance controls
Sending payments at anytime, anywhere in the world doesn’t need to be difficult. That’s why it’s important to partner with the right solution provider who can facilitate bank connectivity through a global network of bank providers and integrated technology. Managed banking is built to be robust, transparent, and flexible as it’s an aggregation of all-in-one place requiring little to no maintenance from users. Integrated technology ensures it seamlessly fits with treasury and cash management systems and banks’. A win-win, right?
Freemarket: the industry's best kept secret
Our ambition is to automate every aspect of cross-border payments and to pass on gains in speed of settlement and reductions in costs to all our clients – our robust technology platform underpins our ability to offer flexible, transparent fee structures influenced by volume.
Our own cutting-edge technology supports our managed banking services. Cloud-native, based on Microsoft Azure servers, we have developed our own dedicated ‘smart-order’, ledger and matching technologies – these maximise speed and deliver better currency exchange rates than the banking sector.
Just like everyone else, we have an API
We have our own lines of code and our own API. Customers of course benefit from a single, simple integration via API, or even a web dashboard for the smallest clients. With our API, a new customer can be integrated with our platform in 24 hours. And, what we offer that others don’t, is the promise that once integrated, the mix of banks and other third parties used to create the optimise payments infrastructure can be changed with no further coding.
More than great technology
We like to think of ourselves as veterans of the industry. While important, we believe technology alone can’t solve all the problems faced by a business looking to grow across borders. Instead, we believe collaboration is at the heart of success. No single bank, payment infrastructure, technology or API is right for everyone. We’re focused on providing a superior service and customer experience that combines the best of what is available into an optimised solution, precisely matching customer needs.
This takes an unusual blend of experience, technology, and connectivity and a willingness to be open and transparent with our customers. Our promise is not just a few lines of code, but an engaged relationship leveraging our extensive experience and know how, building the best possible cross-border payments infrastructure.
World-class knowledge from a local team
Our London-based leadership team applies its collective experience in banking, payments and technology to client challenges on a daily basis. Equally, we’re open to, and proactive in, finding new partnerships, technologies and payment infrastructures to integrate into the Freemarket ecosystem. The more options, opportunities and alternatives we can provide to our customers, the better the fit with their needs and the better the solution we can provide for them.
Our vision is to create a world where companies have the freedom to do business across borders, using their own optimised cross-border payments network to make instant payments and drive growth. We’ll do this by blending our own technology, insights, experience and industry connections with the best technology and banking service infrastructures available.
Our multi-bank approach lets you get on and grow your business. Get in touch see how we can help your business.
