Data Snack: Inefficient cross-border payments are costing companies time and money

6월 1, 2021
  • 89 percent of financial executives said they lost money because of inefficient payment processing systems.
  • A majority of people said they lost four to five percent of their revenue.


Businesses with big ambitions can’t fully scale if they’re losing money working with clunky, antiquated systems to process international payments.

A majority of finance executives — 55 percent — reported monthly revenue losses between four and five percent because of their current payment processing systems. Nearly a quarter said they lost as much as six to 10 percent.

These findings were published by Flywire, a global payments enablement and software company. About 300 CFOs, VPs, controllers, and other executive-level finance professionals reported that problems in their international payment collection processes were affecting their business’ ability to scale internationally.

One of the major findings was that businesses were losing revenue because of inefficiencies with receivables processing.

More specifically, 89 percent said they lost money because of time spent on accounts receivables. 54% said they spend six to 10 hours each month managing inbound payments—valuable time that could be used on strategic endeavors.

Alastair Thompson, global head of business BD & partnerships with Wise, says six to 10 hours doesn’t sound like much but for anyone doing inbound payments, that’s insane.

Interestingly, despite these issues, 93 percent of respondents said that they felt like their banks were ‘providing everything they needed’ to process cross-border payments.

“Yes, banks fulfill that purpose but there could be a better solution,” says Ryan Frere, executive VP and general manager of Flywire. “That’s where the technology comes.”

Source: https://tearsheet.co/data-snacks/data-snack-inefficient-cross-border-payments-are-costing-companies-time-and-money/