Ardent’s P2P Technology Round-Up returns today with another assortment of ePayables, P2P and B2B payment solution provider news and updates from the past week. If you are an Accounts Payable, B2B Payments, or Spend Management solution provider and you have news to share with us, please drop us a note at editor at cporising dot com. Thanks, and enjoy!
AvidXchange Announces Integrations to New Purchase to Pay Solution
American Express Files Patent for Payments via Blockchain
ABBYY Joins TWAIN Working Group
Eximchain Announces $20M Raised for Blockchain Supply Chain Platform
NACHA Launches Program for Standardization of B2B ACH Transactions
AvidXchange Announces Integrations to New Purchase to Pay Solution
AvidXchange, the North Carolina-based accounts payable (AP) and payment automation technology provider, recently announced the first accounting system integrations for its new spend management platform. Following the acquisition of Ariett (which we covered here) back in November of last year, AvidXchange was looking to integrate its combined offerings to offer customers a cloud-based, automated procure-to-pay (P2P) solution that would serve mid-market enterprises. The new solution, AvidXchange Purchase to Pay, is a unified end-to-end spend management platform delivered to customers using Microsoft Dynamics GP and Intact. It integrates Avid’s payment automation solution with extended purchasing functionality that will help users manage their spending with requisition approval and purchase order management. It will be interesting to see how this new solution continues to develop and expand going forward.
American Express Files Patent for Payments via Blockchain
A recent patent application released by the US Patent and Trademark Office showed that credit card giant, American Express, has recently filed a patent for faster payment via blockchain technology. The patent was filed by AMEX’s travel subsidiary, American Express Travel Related Services Company, and outlines the use of blockchain technology to facilitate payments between two parties. The blockchain solution would receive request for payment, which could then be approved or rejected. If the request is approved, the solution would process the transaction automatically and be recorded on the blockchain digital ledger. Since payments would occur on the blockchain platform, both parties (payer and payee) would need to create a digital wallet on the blockchain. This would ultimately allow both parties to bypass third-party banking institutions and conduct payments with each other directly.
ABBYY Joins TWAIN Working Group
ABBYY, a provider of document capture and optical character recognition (OCR) technology solutions, has recently joined the TWAIN Working Group, as an Associate Member. TWAIN is an API and communications protocol that regulates communication between software and digital imaging devices, (like image scanners and digital cameras). The TWAIN Working Group is its not-for-profit organization designed to provide a universal standard that links applications and image acquisition devices. ABBYY will be able to provide its technical expertise in cloud infrastructure to help with the development of TWAIN Direct – the initiative to provide a zero-footprint, mobile-ready version of TWAIN’s open standard protocol.
Eximchain Announces $20M Raised for Blockchain Supply Chain Platform
Eximchain, a blockchain-based supply chain platform startup that was founded in 2015 at MIT, recently raised $20 million to help support its supply chain financing solution. This round of funding comes from a group of investors led by FBG Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund, based in China. Eximchain is looking to leverage blockchain technology so that stakeholders within any supply chain can connect, make transactions, and share information in a more efficient and secure way. This can be done using smart contracts on Eximchain’s blockchain platform to allow users to verify the validity of orders placed with all partners and suppliers, and also provide the necessary financing. Ultimately, both buyers and suppliers would no longer need to track the supply chain process flow manually. Instead they would be able to maintain an audit of the final contract in real-time through the secured network.
NACHA Launches Program for Standardization of B2B ACH Transactions
NACHA, a not-for-profit association that supports the broad payments industry and is the steward of the ACH Network, recently launched a new payment program designed to make B2B payments more efficient. This Request for Payment program will enable all businesses to send electronic invoices (and receive corresponding payments) through the ACH Network. Through this voluntary program, businesses will be able to leverage a standardized ACH Network message that would allow them to reach any customer’s/trading partner’s bank, and send electronic invoices to them on the ACH Network. Customers will be able to make payment and share the corresponding remittance information on the ACH Network as well. NACHA hopes that this program will increase the adoption of electronic payments, which in turn will help businesses improve cash management, reduce accounts payable errors, and reduce the associated expenses with sending manual invoices/checks.
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