Aussie businesses warming to digital B2B payments

Australian businesses are enthusiastic about the benefits of switching to digital payments for B2B transactions, but many are yet to make the switch, according to a new Deloitte survey.

The survey of medium and large organisations in Australia and New Zealand found that cards and digital payments can be 70% more effective than traditional purchase order processes.

Buying organisations adopting digital payments have also experienced benefits including improved cash flow (reported by 73% of respondents), reduced manual work on approvals (74%) and administration (68%), as well as the generation of better data for analytics and reporting (63%).

In addition, 82% of survey respondents reported that cards were faster and more efficient for procure-to-pay workflows, with an average speed improvement of 1.4 times. Nearly half agreed that cards reduce the cost of doing business.

Users are realising that the potential of digital payments extends beyond just managing employee expenses, allowing companies to spend less time chasing payments while improving customer relationships.

Australian spending on card-based B2B payments has accordingly grown 42% since 2011.

But despite this growth, adoption remains limited. Nearly half (47%) of survey respondents were not using available B2B digital payment technologies and 100% still had paper processes to support cheque payments.

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