Late payments almost doubled over lockdown

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Late Payments

Chatsworth client, Previse, spoke to the Financial Times about the urgent need to use technology to get SMEs paid on time, sharing its proprietary data, revealing late payments almost doubled over lockdown. 

The FT’s report, out this week, is an essential read and deep dive on the challenges small businesses face to get paid fairly and on time. Previse’s data reveals clearly how payment terms and practices are one of the first areas of supply chains to degenerate in the face of uncertainty over cash flow. Inevitably, this impacts small businesses the most. 

The events of the pandemic have put untold strain on supply chains all over the world. Previse’s InsantPay offering – which gets all suppliers paid immediately – has emerged as a sustainable solution to cash flow for businesses. 

Previse’s CEO and co-founder, Paul Christensen, outlined the profound impact day-1 payments could have on helping small businesses:

 “We need every small business in the UK to have the option of day-one payment if we are going to avoid a catastrophic number of bankruptcies and the inevitable rise in unemployment that follows.” 

Thanks to the Financial Times for giving this topic the attention it deserves. Click here to read the full report on the future of payments.

It rounds off a busy few months for Previse which was named a CBILs accredited lender and, more recently, received a £2.5M grant from the BCR. 

The Spectator magazine has also moved Previse into the final round of its Economic Innovator of the year award. And we have a third-year-running listing in the influential Fintech Top 50. A great firm, doing great things. 

Chatsworth was the first communications agency to focus on fintech. We’ve been building fintech reputations for 20 years, steering start-ups through launch, growth and onto corporate action, and protecting and enhancing established infrastructures.

Looking for intelligent, informed and connected fintech PR which delivers results and value?

Get in touch and let us help build your reputation and tell your story

 

Previse named a finalist for Economic Innovator of the Year

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Economic innovator of the year

Chatsworth client Previse has been named a finalist in the Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year awards.

This year saw the Spectator receive more entries than ever, making Previse’s shortlisting a feat in itself.

The Economic Innovator of the Year is awarded to the company that the judging panel feel has disrupted their marketplace and will help rebuild the economy in 2020.

Previse’s business proposition could be considered disruptive in normal market conditions, but has arguably become a necessity since the pandemic. Previse uses technology to get all suppliers paid on day one.

As businesses have struggled to stay afloat in the past six months, many have lengthened payment terms to hold onto cash reserves. Previse’s InstantPay solution benefits both buyers and suppliers and is an antidote to broken supply chains.

Testament to the strength of its solution is the momentum Previse has gained since the onset of the pandemic. The fintech received CBILs accreditation, as well as a £2.5 million grant from the BCR to accelerate growth. This is in addition to a partnership with the FSB.

Previse saw off stiff competition to be shortlisted for the prestigious Spectator award and is the only player in its space to be named a finalist.

Previse CEO Paul Christensen, rounds off perfectly: “What we are building here goes beyond just a great product: we’re creating a movement that ensures that every SME has the option of instant payment whenever they issue an invoice.”

Click here to read more about Previse’s shortlisting and the awards.

Chatsworth was the first communications agency to focus on fintech. We’ve been building fintech reputations for 20 years, steering start-ups through launch, growth and onto corporate action, and protecting and enhancing established infrastructures.

Looking for intelligent, informed and connected fintech PR which delivers results and value?

Get in touch and let us help build your reputation and tell your story

Pioneering fintech, Previse, secures £2.5m to help SMEs get paid on time

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BCR Previse

Chatsworth fintech client, Previse, has been awarded a £2.5m grant by the Banking Competition Remedies’ Capability and Innovation Fund (BCR).

The money will be used to fund further development of Previse’s industry leading instant payments solution. The grant was won after a competitive application process that saw £20m dispersed to 6 companies, as part of the BCR’s mission to facilitate the commercialisation of financial technology relevant to SMEs.

The award will accelerate the market adoption of Previse’s technology that improves the cashflow of SMEs who trade with large corporates and supports the delivery of a SmartData initiative, in partnership with the FSB, aimed at enhancing the availability of trading data used by the instant payment solution.

With the FSB working as a lead delivery partner, the award comes at a critical time for UK businesses. Covid-19 government support is starting to be withdrawn. At the same time the endemic culture of poor business practice around invoice payment has worsened, creating big cashflow challenges for SMEs. This is highlighted by the latest FSB study of more than 4,000 firms, which showed that the majority of small businesses (62%) have been subject to late or frozen payments in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

This cripples their ability to pay their own bills, to pay staff, and ultimately to continue to trade in the current climate. Previse believes SMEs should have the option to receive instant payment, whenever they issue an invoice.

Paul Christensen, CEO of Previse said: 

“With the BCR funding and collaboration with the FSB, we will be able to get more SMEs paid instantly: reducing the need to resort to other expensive forms of finance. Our top priority is getting working capital to small businesses, to provide the immediate cashflow support they need.

Chatsworth was the first communications agency to focus on fintech. We’ve been building fintech reputations for 20 years, steering start-ups through launch, growth and onto corporate action, and protecting and enhancing established infrastructures.

Looking for intelligent, informed and connected fintech PR which delivers results and value?

Get in touch and let us help build your reputation and tell your story

Previse’s AI tech scoops up two awards, in two cities, on a single day

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Previse scooped up two awards in two cities yesterday as it won the ‘Best use of data and analytics in financial services’ award at the FStech Awards 2019 in London and the ‘Best small employer’ award at the Family Friendly Working Scotland (FFWS) Top Employers Awards 2019 in Glasgow.

Previse was recognised by the FStech judging panel for its unique application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to get suppliers paid instantly. The fintech overcame tough competition, seeing off banking giants such as HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.

Previse’s AI technology analyses its clients’ ERP data to predict the few invoices which are unlikely to get paid. The rest can then be paid instantly by a funder, such as a bank. The buyer then pays the funder back on its normal payment terms.

From its inception, Previse has recognised the global scale of the slow payments issue that it aims to solve and so has built its technology to cover the earth. The company’s AI technology can analyse huge amounts of data for each client, each of which has global supply chains, hundreds of suppliers and use multiple currencies. It has huge growth potential and will help unlock $650 billion tied up in slow payments globally.

Previse have already analysed over $150 billion of spend generated from three million suppliers and their algorithms are constantly improving their accuracy as they analyse more data.

Now in their 19th year, the FStech Awards recognise excellence and innovation in the field of information technology within the UK and EMEA financial services sector. Judges included senior personnel from Deutsche Bank, KPMG, EY and Nationwide Building Society.

Upon receiving the FStech award, Previse’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Christensen, commented:

“When Previse’s founders gathered in a tiny room in London, just under three years ago, we recognised that the smart use of data and analytics can eradicate the global problem of slow supplier payments. Our capabilities in these areas are core to the business and we now have offices in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Germany, Vietnam and the US, which house some of the world’s leading machine learning PhDs.”

“Winning this award ahead of some huge institutions that have been around for decades is a proud moment for our company. We have signed up eight multinational clients and have partnered with organisations such as PwC, Oracle & RBS-NatWest and are tackling the problem head on.”

“Previse’s mission is to ensure that every supplier in the world can be paid instantly and at the fairest rate. With rapid progress and the enthusiastic participation of some of the world’s largest buyers, we are well on the way to achieving it.”

The FFWS Top Employer Awards, which are now in their fifth year, celebrate forward-thinking employers who understand how flexibility is good for people – helping them successfully balance work and home life – as well as for business growth.

The winners were announced to an audience of 150 Scottish business leaders at a spring-themed Brewery Bash at WEST Brewery in Glasgow yesterday afternoon.

Previse and Cobalt named amongst Top 101 Fintech Disruptors

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BusinessCloud has revealed its list of the top 101 fintech disrupters in the UK, and it made for pleasant reading at Chatsworth Towers.

The award recognises companies that are disrupting the industry through technology – whether they are heavyweight incumbents to start-ups. BusinessCloud also canvassed the opinion of industry experts before they settled on the final line-up, and we’re delighted that two of our clients made the list.

One of those is Previse, a startup that applies machine learning technology to solve a global business problem – slow B2B payments. The London-based fintech enables buyers to have all their suppliers paid instantly, as soon as the buyer receives an invoice. It uses machine learning to root out the invoices which may not be paid, allowing a funder to pay the rest immediately.

Previse has made huge strides since its launch in 2016, recently raising £7 million in Series A funding. The startup has also received backing from leading business figures and top venture capital firms and has signed up seven large organisations. With strong plans for growth, the company is undoubtedly one of the hottest fintechs worth keeping an eye on over the next few years.

Another of Chatsworth’s clients named in the list is Cobalt, a foreign exchange (FX) post-trade processing network based on shared infrastructure and high-performance technology. Cobalt’s unique solution leverages highly optimised technology alongside an in-house immutability service based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) to deliver a shared back and middle office infrastructure that is scalable, secure and fast.

By creating a shared view of trade data, Cobalt frees up back and middle office resources from multiple layers of reconciliation; creating a ‘golden’ portfolio of FX transactions from which to provide multiple services.

In May, Cobalt secured a strategic investment from Singapore Exchange (SGX), which operates Asia’s largest, most diverse and fastest growing FX exchange.

It’s great to see startups such as Previse and Cobalt be recognized for shaking up the status quo in their respective industries.

As the original fintech PR company, we can say with confidence that there isn’t a more disruptive sector than fintech. It has finally come of age and made it into the US-run Merriam Webster online dictionary – perhaps fitting, considering the shared digital origins!

READ THE LIST IN FULL

Previse raises USD $7m in Series A funding round

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Previse, the global supplier payments decisions company, has raised USD $7m in a Series A funding round, led by listed European fintech specialist, Augmentum Fintech PLC, and one of the world’s pre-eminent venture capital firms, Bessemer Venture Partners.

Hambro Perks and a number of existing and new angel investors also participated in the funding round.

Applying machine learning to B2B payments

Previse applies machine learning technology to solve a global business problem – slow B2B payments. The London-based fintech enables buyers to have all their suppliers paid instantly, as soon as the buyer receives an invoice. It uses machine learning to root out the invoices which may not be paid, allowing a funder to pay the rest immediately. The small fee paid by the supplier for instant payment is shared between the buyer, the funder and Previse.

How big is the slow B2B payments problem?

Slow business to business (B2B) payments caused by inefficient payment terms cost the world’s businesses US$300 billion every year. They cripple business and economic growth and are one of the leading killers of small suppliers. Paying slowly costs large buyers, because a supplier’s expensive cost of borrowing is priced into the cost of the goods or services supplied. Large buyers are also perceived to be taking advantage of their suppliers and are facing a growing public and political backlash as a result.

Significant demand for InstantPay

Since its founding in 2016, Previse has grown rapidly, signing up seven large organisations as well as receiving significant demand for its InstantPay technology from some of the world’s largest companies. It is also now listed on the G-Cloud – meaning instant invoice payment is now available for the £223 billion market that is public procurement.

The Series A funding will help scale Previse’s business to meet this significant, global demand, onboard clients and further develop its technology with the overall aim of ensuring that every supplier in the world can be paid instantly.

World-leading backers

Bessemer Venture Partners is America’s longest-standing venture capital firm. It has a global portfolio and has invested in companies such as LinkedIn, DocuSign, and Box. Augmentum Fintech is a listed fintech-focused venture capital investor and its portfolio includes leading UK fintech companies such as Zopa, Interactive Investor and Seedrs.

In 2017, Previse also raised £2 million in a seed funding round led by Hambro Perks, Founders Factor and high net-worth angel investors with close ties to high-profile multinationals.

It counts senior business figures such as Chairman of British Land, John Gildersleeve, and Sainsbury’s Chairman, David Tyler as members of its advisory board.

More positive news for high-flying UK fintech scene

This positive development from the London-based fintech comes just weeks after KPMG announced the UK held the crown for worldwide fintech investment in H1 of 2018. It attracted over US$16.1bn of inbound investment during the first half of the year, more than China (US$15.1bn) and the United States (US$14.2bn).

Previse has made huge strides since its launch in 2016, receiving backing from leading business figures, top venture capital firms and signing up seven large organisations. With strong plans for growth and a desire to transform global B2B payments, the company is undoubtedly one of the hottest fintechs worth keeping an eye on over the next few years.

Mosaic Smart Data & Previse named in Europe’s 50 Hottest Fintechs

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Last week, Fintech City unveiled the sixth annual list of Europe’s top fintech50 companies. The list is selected by a panel of internationally renowned figures across finance and technology from a long-list of 1,800 companies. We were very proud to see Mosaic Smart Data and Previse added to the list this year for the first time.

Drawn from both B2C fintechs and those aimed at the institutional market, the list includes a wide range of business models and technologies.

Mosaic Smart Data and Previse lead a strong contingent of data analytics and machine learning companies. Both companies have had huge success targeting these technologies at specific, previously unsolvable, business problems.

In the case of Mosaic, it is enabling institutions to, for the first time, see their fixed income, currencies and commodities business in real-time. It uses advanced analytics to enable sales teams to generate useable insights to boost their performance and improve client servicing. In the last twelve months, Mosaic announced its first client, secured funding and expanded its team.

Previse is using machine learning to enable large businesses to have their suppliers paid instantly. It has made it onto the list in just its second year of business after securing funding from the Scottish Government and welcoming senior business figures such as John Gildersleeve and David Tyler to its advisory board.

As well as analytics companies like Mosaic Smart Data and Previse, a big trend in the 2018 list are blockchain companies. The list includes businesses applying the technology to a range of fields, from wholesale payments settlement to digital identity and cybersecurity.

Data analytics and blockchain are moving beyond theory and are now actively transforming global finance. It is, therefore, no surprise that these technologies feature strongly in this list of the most exciting financial technology companies.

We are proud to be working with some of the companies in the vanguard of these changes, both in Europe and the United States.

Banks Prioritising Digital Transformation

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Fintech has barely even got started if a new report from EY is to be believed. Less than 20% of banks believe they are doing enough as a business to invest in technology, according to EY’s Global Banking Outlook study. This, despite some substantial leaps forward in technological capability and significant investment.

To combat this, more than half of banks surveyed in the report expect budgets for technological investment to rise by 10% this year, and more than half of banks aspire to be digitally maturing or digital leaders by 2020. Banks appetite to invest and partner with fintech firms may in part explain why last year was a bumper year for fintech VC funding, with $1.8 billion raised by UK firms.

This new investment opens up major new growth opportunities for the already thriving financial technology market.

The impact of fintech is being felt in every part of finance, from retail banking to back-office compliance. But one of the key focuses for banks over the past few years has been using technology to try to deal with stringent compliance and regulation, which slows down, complicates and adds expense to transactions.

Solving this is one of the key promises of distributed ledger technology (DLT) which is being touted as a new way to create trust between institutions, lower compliance costs and create information sharing efficiencies. This year, we are likely to see the first examples of DLT moving from proof of concept into market operation.

Data analytics and machine learning are likely to be another hotspot of activity this year. Many banks have begun announcing project designs in all kinds of areas of the bank, from back-office automation to the use of machine learning to improve execution quality.

For example, JP Morgan is working with UK based data analytics company Mosaic Smart Data to unlock insights from its internal FICC data to improve client handling and FICC performance.

In trade finance, Previse is looking to end late payments for SME suppliers with its advanced machine learning and innovative finance model which creates opportunities for buyers, sellers and banks alike.

The last few years have seen an explosion in financial technology. However, emerging technologies begin to mature, and banks continue to strive to be more efficient and effective, it looks like the fintech surge is only just beginning.

Chatsworth was the first communications agency to focus on fintech. We’ve been building fintech reputations for 20 years, steering start-ups through launch, growth and onto corporate action, and protecting and enhancing established infrastructures.

Looking for intelligent, informed and connected fintech PR which delivers results and value?

Get in touch and let us help build your reputation and tell your story

Carillion collapse shines spotlight on late payments issue

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The collapse of construction giant Carillion has focused media and government attention on the global issue of payment terms after it was discovered the group paid subcontractors with a 120-day delay. These delayed payments meant many suppliers had to resort to expensive bank finance to stay in business while others are now facing bankruptcy.

Recognising the importance of ending the culture of late payment, two FTSE 100 chairmen have joined the advisory board of Previse, a UK based company which uses artificial intelligence to solve slow payments for the entire supply chain.

Chairman of supermarket chain J Sainsbury, David Tyler and chairman of property group British Land, John Gildersleeve have joined the company as investors and advisers.

Previse’s AI technology is designed to enable large firms to pay suppliers on the day they receive an invoice. The London-based firm’s technology calculates a buyer’s likelihood of paying an invoice, before deciding which invoices will be paid, so small suppliers can be paid instantly.

David Tyler said: “The length of time it can take for suppliers to be paid hurts not only them, but the large companies buying their products and services as well.” He believes that Previse will bring benefits to the entire supply chain and that the company has a bright future ahead of it.

Mr Gildersleeve, who is also deputy chairman of telecoms company TalkTalk, told the Financial Times that Previse could tackle an issue that has, “infected British business forever.”

Lengthy payment terms and the prevalence of slow payments by large buyers, which affects three in five SME suppliers, cause 50,000 UK SMEs to close each year. Previse’s artificial intelligence technology allows even very small suppliers to receive payment the day they issue their invoice by instantly identifying if an invoice is correct and allowing a funder to pay the supplier immediately based on this information.

“I am proud to be able to welcome our new board members who represent incredible senior experience across such a wide range of industries with significant supply chains.” Said Paul Christensen, CEO of Previse. “I think this shows the deep understanding across industry that slow payments are a real problem, and confidence in our approach to tackling the problem.”

Chatsworth was the first communications agency to focus on fintech. We’ve been building fintech reputations for 20 years, steering start-ups through launch, growth and onto corporate action, and protecting and enhancing established infrastructures.

Looking for intelligent, informed and connected fintech PR which delivers results and value?

Get in touch and let us help build your reputation and tell your story