Payment optimization with PISP: efficiency, savings, and automatic reconciliation 

For a company, growth is always positive, but it brings a paradox business owners know well: more work, yet also more invoices to track, delays to manage, and reconciliations to correct. Meanwhile, the time and resources devoted to these tasks divert attention from growing the business. 

The opening up of banking systems to new players and services introduced by PSD2 has paved the way for solutions capable of revolutionizing receivables management. Among these are Pay by Bank payments offered by Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs), which enable faster, safer, and more integrated collections, turning a traditionally slow and fragmented process into an immediate, automated digital flow. 

Inefficient management of digital payments: a risk for corporate cash flow 

When managing collections is inefficient, payment delays trigger a domino effect along the supply chain, potentially leading to cascading insolvencies with direct impacts on financial statements. Globally, the consequences of late payments are estimated at around 1,000 billion dollars per year¹, including losses, management costs, and bad debt. UK is no exception: the economic cost amounts to almost £11 billion per year.²  

The main challenges hampering efficient receivables management span several fronts: 

• Rising DSO and liquidity pressures: with a global average Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) between 50 and 60 days in 2024³—and rising—longer collection cycles force many organizations to postpone growth plans and cope with unpredictable liquidity.  
  
  In the UK, payment terms average approximately 51 days, which aligns closely with France but is substantially longer than Germany's 32-day average. The average payment delay beyond agreed terms stands at 32 days, meaning businesses often wait well beyond their contractual payment periods to receive funds. When combined with standard payment terms, this pushes actual collection times significantly higher.⁴ 
   
  The UK government has recognized these extended payment periods as problematic and has implemented reforms. From April 2024, businesses bidding for government contracts must pay 95% of undisputed invoices within an average of 55 days, with this requirement tightening to 45 days from October 2025 and eventually moving toward 30 days. These policy interventions acknowledge that current DSO levels are unsustainable for many businesses, particularly SMEs operating with limited cash reserves.⁵ 
   
• Payment methods that are complex to manage: providers often offer a limited range of payment methods that, in many cases, do not match customer needs and also complicate receivables management. The most common are: credit cards, which consume customers’ available limits for high-value payments; bank transfers which, by requiring manual data entry, are prone to errors that hinder reconciliation for the payee; and instalments or cheques which, by lengthening the collection cycle, also increase the risk of non-payment and complicate cash-flow forecasting. 

• Insufficient payment security culture: as electronic transactions grow, so do fraud and increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. In the United Kingdom, fraud and bad debt remain significant threats to business stability in 2025. According to UK Finance’s Annual Fraud Report 2025, British companies and individuals lost £1.17 billion to fraud in 2024, encompassing both unauthorised fraud such as account takeovers and card scams, and authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where victims were deceived into transferring funds themselves. 

PISP and online payments: a paradigm shift in corporate receivables management 

In the European context, open banking has been a turning point for innovating receivables management. Thanks to Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs), which can initiate a transaction at the user’s request directly from their bank account, account-to-account payments become part of business applications and processes, no longer an external step delegated solely to the customer and their bank. 

For this reason, adopting a PISP payment service can transform both how companies collect and how they pay other businesses and suppliers: 

Optimized reconciliation and cash flow for beneficiary companies 

• Lower transaction costs: Pay by Bank payments initiated via PISP avoid intermediaries such as card schemes, reducing fees and generating direct savings. 
• Faster collections and better liquidity: by integrating Pay by Bank into processes (ERP, e-invoicing) and using SEPA Instant Credit Transfers, companies can accelerate collections and access funds sooner. 
• Certainty of outcome: unlike a SEPA Direct Debit, which can be disputed, or a cheque with insufficient funds, a transfer authorized via PISP reaches the company’s account definitively (barring rare exceptions), reducing the risk of non-payment. 
• Automatic reconciliation and fewer administrative errors: when payment is initiated through a PISP, the order already includes all payment information—such as amount and invoice reference—simplifying reconciliation and enabling process automation, easing administrative workload and reducing accounting errors. 

Better payment experience and operational efficiency for debtor companies 

• Simplified, fast payment process: PISP services spare the paying company from manually entering complex data (supplier IBAN, amounts, invoice references) and from losing time logging into and verifying online banking portals. A frictionless experience supports timely payments to suppliers. 
• Greater transparency on outgoing flows: simple payments don’t mean less control. With PISP-based collection solutions, transactions are authorized via SCA and fully traceable, improving cash-flow management. 
• Operational efficiency: streamlining outgoing payments boosts internal efficiency by automating steps such as order entry, data verification, or accounting entries—reducing time and resources. 
• High security and lower fraud risk: PISP payments comply with PSD2 and incorporate Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). This reduces risks such as phishing—since the payer’s banking credentials are entered only within the bank’s interface—and prevents errors or manipulation of the beneficiary’s IBAN. 

Lower costs and greater efficiency in online payments with PISP solutions 

Optimizing receivables management is strategic not only to improve internal cash flow, but also to ensure long-term operational stability. That is why adopting account-to-account payments via PISP—such as Fabrick’s Pay by Bank solution—is a key lever for companies, both for collections and for outgoing payments. 

Cost savings, faster financial flows, automated reconciliation, and risk reduction translate into stronger working capital, higher productivity, and a healthier cash position—factors that can make the difference when giving the company a genuine growth boost.