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Allianz Trade, a trade credit insurance company, Two, a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce payments platform, and Santander Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB), a trade finance bank, have partnered to provide the first global B2B Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solution for large multinational corporates.
The companies have combined Allianz Trade’s more than 100 years of experience in trade credit insurance with Two’s B2B BNPL technology, and Santander CIB’s capabilities in tailor-made working capital solutions with more than €300 billion of turnover.
The result is a new product for global online B2B commerce. Corporates now have a one-stop solution to offer business buyers instant deferred payments at checkout.
With a single Application Programming Interface (API) integration powered by Two, Santander CIB finances upfront payments to sellers and credit terms to buyers globally, while Allianz Trade protects the whole value chain against non-payment risk (e.g. including credit risk).
Sellers will have global multi-currency support to reduce the need for complex operating models with multiple providers across technology, trade insurance, and trade credit.
François Burtin, global head of e-commerce at Allianz Trade said, “Our solution will be distributed worldwide and aims to allow large corporates to develop their online sales by offering deferred payments to existing and new customers, without being exposed to non-payment risks, while benefiting from immediate and guaranteed payments.”
Marsh Spain acted as the trade credit insurance broker. Ana Meca Diez, head of financial risks and specialties at Marsh Spain added, “At Marsh Spain, we are very pleased to be at the forefront of this value proposition supporting our partners in their continuous development of innovative solutions.”
Each member of this partnership contributes to the solution with its own experience: Two takes care of the payment technology, Santander CIB finances upfront payment to sellers and credit to buyers and Allianz Trade protects the whole value chain against non-payment risk.
As part of this partnership, Allianz Trade assesses credit requests instantly through its API thanks to its database, which contains commercial, financial and strategic information about more than 80 million corporates worldwide.
This will help Santander CIB make financing decisions on the spot. All this process is streamlined and set up through Two’s BNPL technology. Everything happens in a fraction of a second, without the end user even realising it.
Ignacio Frutos Lopez, global head receivables at Banco Santander CIB said, “The fact that buyers have to use personal or corporate credit cards is still hindering B2B transactions. Enabling businesses to maintain their payment habits within 30 or 60 days of their invoices, in an e-commerce environment will be a big differentiator for sellers, while adding a major game changer: all concerns about non-payment risk are now removed, and their cash flow is preserved at all times. Additionally, the solution is instant and seamless which makes it really powerful for a firm dealing with huge sales volumes across different countries.”
This new B2B BNPL solution allows Santander to cover the full spectrum of BNPL products since it complements Zinia, the business to consumer (B2C) BNPL solution launched by Santander’s Digital Consumer Bank with a successful implementation in Germany and the Netherlands over the past year.
Allianz Trade and Two had partnered earlier this year to offer a B2B BNPL solution for SMEs’ in the UK, while at the same time Allianz Trade and Santander were working on large BNPL projects.
The large corporate segment is currently undertaking major online projects to grow B2B e-commerce sales and improve margins. However, they lack the instant and seamless payments technology to facilitate B2B sales at a global level.
Stavros Tamvakakis, co-founder of Two said, “Business buying is not a one-size fits all and our product streamlines key steps in the journey (e.g. instant onboarding, ordering, underwriting, invoice distribution, payments, reconciliation) so that sellers do what they do best while we abstract the pain points of drop-offs, working capital tie up, risk, and manual work.
Our ambitions are at a global scale, so we decided to take our partnership with Allianz Trade further by collaborating with Santander CIB, combining two powerhouses in insurance and banking to create a unique and innovative solution dedicated to large corporates.”
