IN CHAINS?
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SHACKLED BY LIMITED ACCESS TO WORKING CAPITAL

Cashflows

During the COVID-19 pandemic, 68 percent of small and medium businesses in the UK reported a negative impact on cash flow, and, for any business where success is built on supplying funding to others, having access to working capital is crucial.

Without it, finance providers are limited in the levels of business they can underwrite and could find their business development efforts shackled. Losing out on new credit and loan customers because the funding is unavailable is a tough pill to swallow at any time – but especially in the current climate when revenue and new business are hard to come by.

Improving efficiency in the way businesses manage money can have a huge impact, and there are several tricks they can deploy to help improve business fluidity.

Lenders today operate in a fast-evolving digital landscape, and it’s tough to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation. Working with external technology partners who can help them to optimise all parts of their value chain is a smart approach, providing them with the agility, expertise, and data to react quickly to opportunities and gain a competitive advantage.

Harnessing technology enables lenders to get funding to customers quickly. Digital advertising, applications, AI and data, credit decisioning, and auto-boarding, along with fast cash disbursement systems like Visa Direct and Mastercard Send, mean the lead-time for a new customer to have funds in their bank account can be seamless and almost instant.

But that’s only the start of the journey – now you need to be paid back. And when a customer starts to pay down their loan, you need to make sure their payments are approved, processed, and can be turned into working capital for your business as quickly as possible.

We work with lenders to help them optimise their revenue by improving their payments processing. These businesses really value tools that help them understand why payments have been declined and partners who tailor their service and commercial arrangements to their circumstances.

42% of the businesses we surveyed believe that technology-led innovation to improve cash flow is a top priority. Reducing declines is one way of dealing with this but speeding up payments for the majority of transactions that go through successfully has the potential to make a massive difference.

Being able to accelerate card payment settlement on demand is a valuable tool: Cashflows’ research shows that 3 in 5 businesses believe that a method of faster settlement would improve their payment process.

In a world of real-time everything, waiting days for funds to settle feels like something from another age. The good news is that you no longer need to wait because settlement on your terms is now a reality.

Statistics sourced from a recent Cashflows whitepaper.

Nick Dobson
Head of Direct Sales
Cashflows