Dive Brief:

• Netherlands-based fintech company Adyen on Thursday announced a new tool aimed at unifying payments, liquidity and payouts, as finance teams grapple with fragmented banking systems and growing demand for faster money movement.
• The company said its new Intelligent Money Movement product is designed for businesses managing complex transactions at scale, including insurance companies, retail marketplaces, online travel agencies and mobility and delivery platforms. Early adopters include Etsy and Expedia Group, Adyen said.
• “In the last few years, the CFO’s office has had to deal with rapid change and uncertainty with the adoption of AI and economic conditions,” Adyen CFO Ethan Tandowsky said in the press release. “Enabling treasurers to be more agile allows them to deliver true value to the business and its operations.”

Dive Insight:

The move comes as financial operations at global enterprises remain “stubbornly complex,” with the average treasury team managing a fragmented mix of banking and payment providers, according to the release.

Enterprises typically work with five to six primary banks, manage over 40 bank accounts and use around 12 payment collection and payout providers, Adyen and Boston Consulting Group found in a joint study released in January.

The result is often trapped capital spread across disconnected systems, according to Adrian Davis, managing director of financial services and insurance at Adyen.

“That constellation of fragmented banking providers is massively dragging down liquidity,” he said in an interview.

The complexity often builds over time as companies expand into new markets or inherit systems through acquisitions. Meanwhile, expectations around instant payments are putting new pressure on finance teams.

“People expect to pay and be paid instantly, without any hassle,” Davis said.

He added that speed of payments can be an important competitive differentiator in some cases. For example, an insurance provider’s delayed payout after a claim was already approved may be seen as a poor customer experience, he said.

Davis said some companies are also beginning to look at faster payouts as a premium service that can be monetized.

A customer “may decide that it is worth paying that extra money to get that cash up front,” he said. “And so, what we're finding is that many modern digital companies are actually using payout as a profit center.”