Bluevine, Veem Team Up On Small Business Cross-Border Payments

At Bluevine, we provide fast, flexible working capital funding to small business owners. We’re obsessed with making the process of requesting & receiving funding quick, easy and transparent for our community of business owners. We care about the financial health of each member of our community, as if our business depended on it. It does.

Helping our community members get access to the best solutions to run & grow their businesses is an important part of our mission.

That’s why we’re excited to announce our latest partnership with Veem.

Veem is transforming how businesses send & manage cross border payments, using the blockchain

For many small business owners, making cross border payments through their primary bank is painful, complicated, and expensive. Small businesses have had little in the way of choice.

Veem has been tackling this problem since launching in 2014. The fintech startup has reinvented the cross-border payments experience with the small business in mind, making it easier and less expensive to send & receive international payments.

Small businesses need the help, and banks have been slow to innovate

If you rely on your bank for sending cross border payments, you’re not alone. Most small businesses do. But ask a small business owner about their experience making cross border payment through their bank and you’re likely to get an earful.

When business owners evaluate payment options, speed, simplicity and cost are paramount. When buying goods from overseas suppliers, this matters even more.

Why haven’t banks made the user experience for cross border payments easier for small business owners? There’s plenty of debate, but also agreement on at least two factors — legacy technology, and lack of focus.

Banks rely on relatively old technology for cross border payments. The payment processing model for traditional cross border payments is complicated, involving numerous banks across multiple different countries in the transaction flow. Each bank makes money by participating. Making changes is hard. User experience improvements have been slow in arriving.

That brings us to focus. 87% of respondents to the American Bankers Association payments survey indicated that their bank does not have a formal payments strategy. We shouldn’t be too surprised then that 54% characterize their bank’s approach to payments innovation as “wait and see” while just 3% view their bank as a “First Mover / Experimenter.”

If you’re waiting for traditional banks to deliver the next generation of cross border payments, take a number. If you’re ready for that better experience now, meet Veem.

Benefits of Veem

Veem is designed to make cross border payments simple, and less expensive. The entire solution is online, it’s quick to setup, and less expensive than many alternatives.

Here’s how it works:
• You and your business partners connect on Veem.
• Pay or Get Paid. Monitor payments in real time.
• Track and reconcile payments. Invite more to join. Repeat.

There are no wire fees. Support is one click away. Veem automatically reconciles payments back to your accounting software platform for you.

If you’ve done international payments and walked away less than thrilled about the amount of time, effort and mental energy invested, it’s time for a change. Check out the Veem-Bluevine partnership page.