Thursday 9th May, 2013

At an announcement made this week at AribaLIVE, Ariba and Discover Financial Services unveiled the arrival of Ariba Pay, a new service that is expected to transform B2B payments by eliminating paper transactions, providing better visibility into cash flow and producing rich remittance information that improves reconciliation processes for buyers and sellers.

When launched, the cloud-based service will combine the applications and insights embedded in the Ariba Network  and deliver them through Discover’s global payments infrastructure to streamline and enhance settlement and reconciliation of business commerce.The service is expected to be generally available in 2014. 

“It’s the classic joke: The cheque is in the post. But few companies find it funny,” said Kevin Costello, president, Ariba. “Buyers are drowning in paper, and sellers have no idea when – or how much – they will be paid. AribaPay will effectively eliminate these issues.”

"Ariba and Discover are seizing the opportunity to digitise a share of the estimated $30 trillion in B2B payments that are still mostly made with paper checks,” said Roger Hochschild, president and chief operating officer for Discover. “Discover is broadening its network capabilities and infrastructure and choosing diverse business partners like Ariba to move beyond facilitating payments to enabling and improving business commerce.”

For buyers and sellers connected to the Ariba Network, AribaPay will deliver data that shows what payments represent at the invoice and line-item level, fuelling faster, more accurate reconciliation on both sides.

Other benefits include:

•       Lower processing costs

•       Richer remittance advice

•       Elimination of paper checks and invoices

•       Fewer payments lost to escheatment

•       Ability to track and trace  transactions

•       Faster reconciliation and dispute resolution