Author: Darren Tredgold, General Manager, Independent Steel Company
Global B2B payments hit $89 trillion in 2024. Yet most of that money moves through systems designed decades ago. More than half of all B2B invoices worldwide arrive late. Around 40% of American business payments still travel by paper check. And the trade finance gap sits at $2.5 trillion, which works out to roughly 10% of global merchandise trade.
For businesses in steel, construction, agriculture, and logistics, these numbers are not abstract. They represent the daily reality of waiting 60, 90, or even 140 days to get paid for goods already delivered.
The late payment problem is getting worse
Late payments are not a glitch in the system. Large buyers deliberately extend payment terms to improve their own cash flow. They push the pressure down the chain to smaller suppliers who have fewer options.
The numbers tell a consistent story across regions. Global Days Sales Outstanding reached 59 days in 2023, according to Allianz Trade. That was the biggest jump since 2008. In the UK alone, businesses are collectively owed around £26 billion in overdue invoices, and roughly 14,000 businesses close each year because they simply cannot wait any longer for the money they are owed.
Asia-Pacific tells an even harder story. The Coface 2025 Asia Payment Survey found that 40% of companies reported ultra-long payment delays exceeding 180 days. China’s total average collection period hit 141 days in 2024. Meanwhile, 80% of those ultra-long delays are never collected at all.
In construction, the situation is even more extreme. DSO routinely exceeds 90 days. Every single construction firm surveyed reports experiencing late vendor payments. The industry lost an estimated $280 billion in the US alone due to late payment costs in 2024.
Cross-border payments add layers of cost
Domestic payment friction is bad enough. Cross-border B2B payments make it worse. Traditional cross-border transactions cost 3 to 7% of the payment value once transfer fees, foreign exchange markups, and intermediary charges are added together.
Banks often embed hidden markups of 2 to 4% above the mid-market rate. Modern fintech platforms charge a fraction of that, usually 0.5 to 1.5%. However, banks still handle 92% of cross-border B2B transactions.
Speed remains a problem too. While SWIFT reports that 90% of cross-border payments now reach the destination bank within one hour, only 43% are credited to the beneficiary’s account in that timeframe. Between 15 and 20% of cross-border payments are interrupted by exceptions. Failed cross-border payments cost the global economy an estimated $118.5 billion annually.
On top of all this, the correspondent banking network that makes cross-border payments possible is shrinking. Since 2011, active correspondent banks have fallen by about 22%. The Caribbean has lost 52% of its correspondent banking relationships. This means cross-border payments are becoming harder and more expensive for the businesses that need them most.
Fintech is growing but missing the hardest sectors
The B2B Buy Now Pay Later sector has grown quickly. It reached $199.2 billion in gross merchandise value in 2024, with projections to hit $669.5 billion by 2029. Companies like Billie, Hokodo, and Slope are embedding trade credit directly into B2B checkout flows with instant credit decisions powered by AI.
Supply chain finance platforms like SAP Taulia process $500 to $800 billion in working capital financing each year. Real-time payment systems are also gaining ground. The EU’s Instant Payments Regulation mandates all eurozone banks enable instant payment sending by October 2025. India’s UPI processed 172 billion transactions in 2024. Brazil’s Pix handled 68.7 billion.
Still, none of these solutions have cracked the hardest sectors. Construction payment chains run from developers through general contractors to subcontractors to sub-subcontractors. Progress billing, retention payments, and lien waivers create complexity that standard fintech flows cannot handle. Steel distribution requires weight-based pricing, commodity-indexed contracts, and specialised ERP systems that generic platforms do not support. Agricultural supply chains face seasonal cash flow extremes and commodity price volatility that break standard credit models.
The World Bank estimates the global MSME finance gap at $5.7 trillion. Banks reject roughly half of all SME trade finance applications versus just 7% for multinational corporations. The irony is that trade finance instruments have default rates under 0.25%, making them safer than average bank lending. Yet compliance costs and manual processes make small transactions uneconomical for traditional lenders.
The real opportunity
The pattern is clear. Trillions of dollars in B2B payment flows still move through infrastructure that would look familiar to a banker from the 1990s. Fintech solutions are growing fast in digital-native sectors but struggling to penetrate the traditional industries where the pain is worst.
The companies that close this gap will not do it by building horizontal technology platforms. They will need deep domain expertise embedded in existing workflows. A steel distributor’s weigh slip, a contractor’s lien waiver, and a farmer’s crop receipt are not obstacles to modernisation. They are the starting points.