With multiple businesses, small and large, transacting for the purchase of goods and services, B2B transactions are presently in a very large space. Transactions are currently running into $100+ trillion in value globally. BNPL or Buy Now Pay Later has also started becoming more pivotal in the space as it allows for entry into the larger untapped market and also provides much-needed growth to marketplaces and small businesses alike. While there may be multiple players in the B2B BNPL space, it is important to choose the right partner for your offerings and platform.
Here are some parameters to keep in mind while choosing the right BNPL product –
- Seamless integration – Ensures how quickly one can set up the systems for flexible payment terms. A Buy Now, Pay Later provider will be able to embed in your checkout page in just a couple of days. This will lead to saving time and resources. This will also ensure that the marketplace/SMEs can start using the service at the earliest. You should also make sure your BNPL provider continues to support you as you move to a different platform or upgrade.??
- Flexible/ Tailored solutions – The provider should be able to configure payment solutions as per the marketplace’s requirement. A good BNPL provider will work with the marketplace in order to develop and offer the most suitable solution for the platform within the marketplace’s requirements and budget.
- ?Multiple Payment Options – It is significant for you to be able to use different payment methods to settle accounts. It is imperative that you choose a B2B BNPL provider who can support multiple payment options such as bank transfer, direct debit, credit card and more.
- Simple and superior customer onboarding experience – BNPL helps increase the affordability of a product for the end customer. This in turn will lead to higher profitability for the marketplace and better access for MSMEs. Services such as Digital KYC, Flow-based/Transaction-based underwriting, Dashboard, and Reconciliation can help businesses boost make the customer journey seamless and ensure improved customer loyalty.
- Scalable Platform – The BNPL partner should be able to help the marketplace grow the customer base due to ease of use and easy accessibility to working capital.?
- Technological offerings – Today, digital B2B marketplaces are live throughout the day and customers could want to avail of products at any time. Hence, your BNPL provider should be able to help you respond quickly in order to ensure that your customers don’t go looking for other options.
- Secure platform – It is important to ensure that the BNPL provider you are partnering with is a safe solution and is backed by reputed lending partners. This ensures that you can carry on with business as usual while the BNPL provider is focusing on collections and payments.
- ?Affordability – Just like other lending services, a BNPL provider makes profits by charging fees and commissions from businesses. It is critical to factor in these costs while offering BNPL on your platform. Marketplaces/businesses must also keep in mind that some BNPL providers may charge marketplaces interest, payment penalties, and may even choose to use less than reputed payment collection practices that could lead to losing customers
- Segment/Geography coverage – It is essential to ensure services span across segments and has higher geographical coverage
- ?Approval rates – Most if not all SMEs are new to credit and most of them do have any history of past transactions. The BNPL partner must have an assessment system to be able to provide a credit score for the MSMEs basis their transaction history on the marketplace.?
- Breadth of supply/lending partners (Banks/NBFCs) – The BNPL provider must be associated with the right lending partners in NBFCs and Banks. They must have a good network of such partners to be able to ensure personalised solutions for marketplaces/SMEs.?
Why Rupifi is the right BNPL partner
At Rupifi, we realized the need for a multi-lender network and no-EMI, daily interest products to help unlock the true potential of our partners. As an example, we provide a 14-day BNPF (Buy Now, Pay Flexibly) product to FMCG/Kirana Stores and a 45-day BNPF product to Electronics/Mobile Phone Retailers. This enables us to price it around respective industry margins and expected volatilities in the industries, which has a bearing on expected payment risks. We also assign approval rate/credit scores basis the past transactions on the marketplace for SMEs with no credit history which leads to higher approval rates. We are currently present in 230+ cities?in 25 states and we strive to remove geographical boundaries when it comes to access to flexible financial products and credit for small businesses in India.
