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Seeking to carve out a slice of business-to-business sales, Flexbase Technologies Inc., a San Francisco-based fintech that provides financing technology to businesses, has launched a buy now pay later app for the B2B market.
The app, called Flexbase Pay, provides a fresh twist on the traditional net-60 credit terms in which businesses pay an invoice within a 60-day period, by giving B2B merchants their cash at the time of purchase. B2B buyers taking out the loans can pay them off interest free within 60 days. Enabling B2B sellers to receive payment upfront helps them overcome cash-flow issues that can result from slow payments associated with net 60 days credit.
Flexbase handles the underwriting of the loans, which can be completed in less than the five minutes, for B2B merchants, the company says. BNPL loans typically require borrowers to pay the loan off in installments over a set period of time, either interest free or at a low interest rate.
B2B sellers can offer Flexbase at checkout on their e-commerce Web site. Online sales on B2B e-commerce sites, log-in portals, and marketplaces totaled $1.63 trillion in 2021, a 17.8% increase from 2020, according to Digital Commerce 360-B2B.
DOZR, a construction-equipment rental company, is among the first B2B merchants to offer Flexbase Pay.
“Most merchants, such as those in construction and home improvement like DOZR, are not in the business of managing credit and customer payment collections. And yet, the businesses buying from them demand net-60 payment terms. This is where Flexbase Pay comes in,” Flexbase chief executive Zaid Rahman says in a prepared statement. “Merchants can get funds immediately while businesses get net-60 days of interest-free credit for payments. This ultimately helps merchants sell more products while giving businesses much-needed flexibility on their cash flow.”
In late 2021, Flexbase introduced the Flexbase Card, a credit card for construction companies that offers up to 60 days interest-free credit.
