Credit card and digital payments juggernaut Visa has launched a new automated business-to-business (B2B) payments service in Australia, with the solution promising to “streamline and simplify” money transactions between businesses and suppliers.

The Visa B2B Integrated Payments (VBIP) service, which is embedded into the SAP Business Technology Platform, will enable businesses using the SAP platform to route commercial payments to all suppliers, including those that do not accept card payments.

According to Visa, this automated process effectively removes the need for businesses to conduct additional payments reconciliation.

“For a growing company managing multiple suppliers, payment processes can be automated to reduce the risk of late fees, allowing them to focus on improving their product offerings and customer service while effectively managing supplier payments and cash flow,” said Chris Newkirk, president of commercial and money movement solutions at Visa.

Being an embedded component of SAP, Visa touts the VBIP solution as requiring “little effort for implementation”.

Newkirk added that the “milestone [payments capbility] will help address common pain points faced by business owners, helping to close working capital gaps and digitise B2B payments across supply chains.”

Big four banks ANZ, NAB, Westpac, along with HSBC, are the first to debut VBIP in Australia, with Visa planning to extend the service to more banks “in the future”.

Commenting on its launch of VBIP, ANZ Australia & PNG’s head of transaction banking Philippa Campbell said the new SAP-enabled capability would complement the bank’s existing B2B payment options, “seamlessly integrating financial solutions into the systems our customers already use, providing choice while driving efficiency and innovation.”

Jeff Byrne, managing director of global transaction services at Westpac Institutional Bank, said the bank was pleased to offer VBIP-embedded payments, which would enable its customers to pay suppliers with a card embedded in their B2B payment flows.

“This has the potential to provide process efficiencies and cost benefits where card payments have previously been a stand-alone process.

“Importantly it could also provide access to more working capital solutions within their technology of choice.”

The launch of the VBIP service follows 2023 deal struck between Visa and SAP to embed B2B payments into the SAP ecosystem through SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) for Asia-Pacific users.

SAP’s client base exceeds 480,000 organisations globally, with 99 of the world’s biggest companies using a core SAP system.

SAP estimates that around 77 per cent of the world’s transaction revenue touches one of its systems.