But it’s not necessary. The so-called digital economy is navel-gazing if it’s not leading to a connected economy-frictionless and digitized trade between any supplier and any buyer, anywhere in the world. At Tradeshift, we’re rooting for a digitally connected economy, and we think that there’s no better place to start then with payables, payments, and supply chain finance.

Waiting for 45-90 days to get paid is standard business fare, and suppliers expect it. They deal with it or they don’t do business. It happens because large enterprises want to manage their working capital, or it happens because it takes so long to process invoices. Or it happens because it’s always been done that way. But if you know Tradeshift, you know that we live to challenge the status quo. Today, we announce the launch of the first and only cloud platform to bring supply chain payments, supply chain finance, and blockchain-based early payments together into one unified solution, Tradeshift Pay.

As a buyer, it’s now easier than ever to be successful at extending accounts payable and making the best use of your cash. For the first time, you can go to one single wallet to handle all your payments, end-to-end, across all channels. And for the first time, you can do both regular and blockchain-based early payments in one platform in the cloud. That’s all of your invoices and purchase orders, virtual card payments, dynamic discounting programs, supply chain finance through bank partners, and blockchain-based payments-all digitally connected, end-to-end, in one platform.

Access all your early payment options in one place

With a platform that works both on and off blockchain, businesses can give smaller unbanked business and companies access to electronic payments and finance, anywhere in the world. And companies can get paid much faster-from an average of 30-45 days in EU and US down to a couple of days-helping address the $9 trillion supply chain liquidity problem.

Leverage blockchain back-end to offer early invoice payment

As the first truly multi-finance solution, Tradeshift Pay is supported by more than a dozen major banks and card providers, including Santander, CreditEase, and HSBC. Plus, American Express and Tradeshift Go work together to enable buying and paying on the go.

As the market leader in accounts payable automation, e-invoicing, and global tax compliance solutions, Tradeshift brings a history of innovation to the growing B2B payments market, which is expected to reach $2.2 trillion globally by 2020. Given that we already process more trade than Bitcoin and Ethereum combined, there is huge long-term potential to lower friction for trade and access to capital for global companies. Welcome to the digitally connected economy.