This posting was in PaymentsSource and provides an overview of a new product from PayStand, a 2013 startup out of San Francisco that provides payments automation technology, including blockchain solutions. The company has added Zero Card to its solutions, which is a virtual card payments capability running on Mastercard rails.
As Mercator Advisory Group has been discussing now for months, the pandemic is resulting in companies across the globe doing real-time re-evaluations of supply chain efficiency, including alternatives to paper on how one pays and accepts payments.
‘ “We saw a gap in the solutions available for suppliers who are often faced with the choice of receiving payments by paper checks — which they want to avoid — or cards, which cost them money,” said CEO Jeremy Almond…. Over the past four years Paystand has amassed a roster of 140,000 North American buyers and suppliers that use its proprietary blockchain technology to send and accept payments in real time at no cost, but he hopes adding cards will help scale the concept.’
PayStand has a hybrid blockchain network for B2B payments and is expecting to help scale that solution by leveraging virtual cards, which have risen in profile among buyers and suppliers given the safety, speed of settlement, and working capital benefits in the payment tool, always a concern but now an existential factor for many companies.
So for buyers, the opportunity is to utilize familiar card rails, utilize the credit factor, and take advantage of other PayStand services. However, PayStand expects to convert some of these payers to its blockchain capabilities and eventually have them receive payments through that network as well, thereby expanding the relationship and further scaling the proprietary network.
‘Paystand has seen steady, organic growth as users have recruited other participants, with growth coming mainly from companies that have relied on checks to pay their bills….“Even after all these years of digital technology, slightly less than half of all B2B payments still go by check, which underscores the fact that suppliers don’t have a lot of good alternatives,” Almond said….Paystand uses a couple of banks to issue the Zero Card and works with a few different processors, targeting midsize to large companies on the receiving side and companies of all sizes on the sending side.’
The piece also mentions Teampay (Team Labs), a 2016 startup out of New York that provides purchasing software and expense management solutions using virtual cards. So the pandemic inspired race to digital continues.
‘“Times are changing as payment rails expand and companies finally gain control over whether they pay instantly or get terms or float, and increasingly they also expect options for guarantees, payment revocability and rich data streams,” said Andrew Hoag, Teampay’s CEO.’
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group