For B2B Payments, Speed Is the New Strategy

This is what's next in payments, a PYMNTS podcast. Forward-looking insights from industry leaders on the trends and technologies reshaping payments in FinTech. On this episode, Dean Leavitt, founder and CEO of Boost Payment Solutions, explains why B2B firms are realizing that the velocity at which their AP and AR systems can adapt to real-world demands is now a key lever for growth. I'm Austin Prey, senior editor here at PYMNTS.

Joining me today is Dean Leavitt, the founder and CEO of Boost. Dean, thank you for joining us today. Great to see you again, Austin. My pleasure.

Yeah, likewise, always a pleasure. And it's an exciting one today. You know, we're here for the February What's Next in Payments Series, uh, Word of the Year. Uh, and for this edition, you know, we're asking senior executives to name their word of the year for 2026 uh with two caveats, you know, it can't be AI and it can't be crypto, uh, and to kind of you know explain why this captures the pressures and the priorities, you know, reshaping uh commerce both kind of you know for the year now and for kind of the years ahead.

So diving you know right into that kind of exciting topic, you know, Dean, uh what's your word of the year? I think uh my word of the year is velocity, um, which covers kind of a broad spectrum uh of speed related services uh and and capacities. Um you know, uh velocity is is expected now on many fronts. Um it's it's primarily, you know, how fast can we provide value to our customers, to our port, to our partners?

And it's not just you know, velocity for velocity's sake. Yeah. Uh it has to be uh kind of a well-thought out movement towards um making sure that what you provide, you provide faster uh to your, like I said, your customers or your partners. Awesome.

Yeah, and I love that framing just too, kind of you know, placing velocity in the context of kind of that relationship. Uh you know, what do you see as some constraints? You know, what might slow this velocity down, kind of, you know, as companies like Boost try to you know work to bring it to the life for their customers? Sure.

I mean, you know, um I would say customer inertia is is often um a constraint. Uh, you know, what when you're uh offering solutions, uh products, ways for companies, customers to uh do what they do better, faster, cheaper. Uh, you know, inertia is a very powerful uh you know force uh in commerce and and and generally, uh, you know, to quote uh Bill Gates, uh it's operating at the speed of business. And the speed of business is is obviously getting faster and faster and faster since when he coined that phrase, you know, 20 plus years ago.

Um you know, certainly um, you know, customer inertia, I would say also for us as a company, uh, as many companies also face uh some challenges around focus. Uh, you know, we we serve uh a broad range of types of companies, buyers, suppliers, acquirers, issuers, and a whole world of intermediaries. Um, I think it's important for us to remain focused when you're kind of the proverbial, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Uh that's you know a challenge for companies like ours, where we can offer so much to so many, but we need to stay focused uh on those areas that we internally, collectively, based on market feedback, feel are most appropriate to stay focused on.

Yeah, and it's a great point. You know, Boost kind of sits in between, you know, as you said, operates as a connective tissue, you know, within the B2B landscape. Uh so kind of given you know these disparate, not disparate sets, but given kind of the realities of where Boost sits, kind of where will customers notice change first, kind of as you know, this velocity, um, you know, the benefits to the business are brought to the businesses at the speed of business. And you know, where do you see customers noticing change first?

Uh and kind of what do you see as the role of you know Boost in particular for kind of you know moving forward? What's the kind of the biggest tenfold uh in this tent, so to speak? Sure. I I think I'll answer the first question first.

Uh the second question first, rather. Um deliver uh solutions to uh to solve for the friction, the pain associated primarily with the use and acceptance of commercial cards um globally. Um so I think the first thing our customers and partners for that matter uh will notice is um the speed at which we can deliver those solutions, the kind of the response time to what the market's telling us. Uh, you know, it comes in various forms uh to us, but it's often, hey Boost, this is great.

What if you tweaked it this way or this is wonderful? Can you add this or that? Being able to respond to those types of requests is obviously uh our North Star. It's incredibly important that we do that.

But it's not always from the customer itself. Sometimes we serving the customer we may hear about certain symptoms that they have, let's say with another provider. It's up to us to quickly understand what the cause is, what's underpinning those symptoms, and deliver solutions and products that ultimately fix and and smooth out any friction uh they may be um you know experiencing. Awesome.

Uh and you know, kind of when it comes to delivering this velocity, you know, what are some risks that keep you up at night? Uh and also, you know, risks aren't always uh, you know, a bad thing. And kind of, you know, what are some risks you see as you know, maybe fundamental to bringing kind of you know this increased velocity to the B2B landscape, which, you know, as you mentioned, does have some kind of institutional inertia, you know, maybe you know, around its ankles, keeping those legs a little heavy.

Yeah, you know, um responsiveness. My my concern is are we in fact being responsive? Um you know, it's a very competitive market out there. So um speed of response is it really is kind of table six when all said and done.

Uh so the the kind of the fear I have around that sometimes is are we responding fast enough? Uh are we delivering uh what we're supposed to be delivering as quick as we possibly can, getting back to the velocity issue, right? Um but you have to be very careful. It always has to be balanced with uh, you know, are you delivering a product or solution or service uh that is you know super reliable, super scalable, uh super secure.

So uh, you know, it's it's kind of that balancing act of making sure you are in fact uh delivering with velocity, but also delivering a solid, proven, tested product that the market's going to uh enjoy. Yeah, I mean, especially within kind of you know corporate payments, that all those kind of three pillars that you noted are are only uh becoming more important. You know, I really uh I like a lot, you know, how you're grounding this conversation kind of in Boost's own client needs.

You know, there's the the fintech and payments landscape has been pushed ahead by technological innovation, but there's still, you know, we're kind of coming back around in the circle for service and kind of you know that that high-tech, um, high-touch kind of responsiveness. Uh, and you talked a little bit about table stakes. You know, what in your mind kind of is going to become table stakes uh in 2026? Yeah, I mean, I I uh always go back to those three items, and and I sometimes sound like a broken record both externally and internally, but it it's delivering reliable, scalable, secure products.

This is what the market needs, what the market wants, and doing so with velocity, right? So you can work on something for an extended period of time, and you could be number, you know, 322 in somebody's queue, but they're looking for it yesterday, right? So um it's always working that balance, and that is in fact becoming table stakes. You know, you can't come to the marketplace with something that is not scalable uh and proven to be scalable or proven to be reliable, or obviously, especially in the payments arena, um, being completely secure.

So um I I still maintain that those are the table stakes. They have been the table stakes. Nothing much has changed on that front. Um and I suspect they might never change.

You know, if you can't do that, you're just you shouldn't be in the game. Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's it'll be great news for the V2B landscape if those kind of remain uh, you know, kind of the consistent goals. Uh, but you know, if you had to define success, you know, at the end of this year with kind of one measurable outcome, uh, you know, what would it be?

I think it would be um intelligent, outsized, durable growth. Yeah. Um you know, it's obviously uh it's important to our shareholders, it's important to our company generally, um, but you know, significant and sustainable revenue expansion um coupled with, you know, are our customers happy? And that's reflected in um expansion of use or acceptance of payments uh for existing customers, um, expanding our aperture of who are the buyers and the suppliers that are coming into our world and using our technology and our services and maintaining uh what is arguably one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry.

Uh our customers typically don't leave us. You know, our view of attrition, again, in the enterprise B2B space is when uh buyer X just stops uh buying products or services from supplier Y because they've changed up contractors. They've, you know, they're no longer buying widgets from this company, they're changing it to buy that to that company. So um we typically get the heads up from our buyer customer saying, hey, we're no longer buying widgets from them, we're buying widgets from them.

Can you sign them up for uh acceptance? So um obviously that results in no attrition at all. Um, but that's the nature of our attrition, and that's why it's so incredibly low. So that's always a focal point of the company to make sure that we are building that loyalty, we are serving them properly, um, and that we're delivering them what they expect for us to deliver.

So uh I would say if if we can have uh sustainable, durable growth, uh, we can have some very happy customers as reflected in the continued low attrition rates. And if we can have an organization, um we spend a lot of time making sure our employees are happy and feeling that that what they're doing is is um you know uh is appreciated. Um if you can land those three, uh you've had a winning year. Yeah, no, 100%.

That's really well said. Uh, you know, I guess taking we still have some time here, so maybe digging a little bit into, you know, you mentioned kind of supplier enablement, um, as well as you know, kind of helping companies look for expansion in new ways via payments, maybe even kind of you know cross-border. Uh, you know, how is Boost kind of doubling down on these two uh, you know, pillars here? Yeah, I mean, um, you know, so we've adopted a um uh a strategy, a philosophy uh a couple of years ago uh on the supplier enablement front, especially as it relates to larger strategic suppliers that have often been somewhat allergic to commercial card acceptance.

And that's um, you know, acceptance on your terms. We come to them, we meet them where they want to be. So it's often, you know, we get it. You're you're not a huge fan of card acceptance, but you tell us the scenarios under which you would consider card acceptance, and we'll try to kind of build a world around that.

So um that has uh been enormously successful. Uh, we can have a completely different conversation with these larger suppliers because it's we're empowering them to be part of a solution that can really help them by understanding what it is they need and what it would take for them to consider adding a commercial card acceptance to their other um, you know, AR activities. Uh cross-border-wise, uh, you know, we're currently uh uh processing payments to suppliers in in over 50 countries around the world with the capability to handle over 180 countries.

Um a lot of that has been uh really a result of our new product, Boost 100 XP, which is a card to account uh platform that allows us to essentially uh go to our partners, which are uh primarily commercial card issuers, bank issuers, and non-bank issuers. And it gives them the ability to have conversations with their customer around you can use your card to pay any supplier anywhere in the world. And that has truly opened up uh both domestic spend as well as international spend.

We have seen a significant surge in international spend in some very interesting countries because these uh these corporates now have the ability to use a card to pay uh suppliers anywhere around the world, even if their issuer cannot issue cards around the world. We can level the playing field through Boost 100 XP. So it's it's been a um it's been a magnificent tool. And with respect to some of the issuer partners that we have, it's been a weapon for them to level the playing field vis-a-vis other uh issuers.

Yeah, and it's uh I I love the use, honestly, of the term weapon. You know, it's not a term that you know you'd kind of historically or traditionally applied to D2B payments. Um, but you know, going back to kind of the word of the year, velocity, things are moving so fast, they're happening so fast that there are a ton of opportunities out there for businesses that are looking to digitize and optimize uh their payments. And you know, Dean, it's been a great conversation so far.

Uh, we're nearing the end of my questions. Uh, is there anything here at the end you'd you know like to kind of talk about uh just about the trends you know that the boost is seeing out there in the marketplace and the velocity you know you're looking forward uh to for the year ahead? Sure. You know, it's it's it's really um, I would say in conjunction with the um the maturation of the office of the CFO, uh, where the office of the CFO generally is getting uh is broadening its mandate.

It's getting much more sophisticated with respect to how a company pays or gets paid. That was always a secondary issue for most CFOs. Um they just didn't focus on it. Uh, but they're now beginning to realize more and more at large corporations and institutions that um managing the way in which you pay, the various payment modalities you utilize, and managing how you get paid and how can you can use different payment modalities to dramatically improve your working capital is is a trend that is uh a high velocity trend.

We're seeing more and more uh of uh CFO offices um frankly finally understand, appreciate, and take advantage of the various benefits that commercial card offers. So um that's something we're obviously very excited about. We think that we've um actually um in many ways served as a catalyst for. Um so that trend is very exciting, and it's really, you know, it's having a direct impact on companies that books on working capital.

Uh you know, buyers being able to expand their day's payable outstanding, and obviously suppliers reduce their day sale, um day sales outstanding. So um uh that trend is is is not going to be reversed. It's becoming very important for the CFO office. Yeah, and it's a digital, it's a one-way street.

You know, there's not not a lot of U-turns uh that are happening out there kind of in the enterprise spread landscape. Um well, Dean, thank you so much for your time today. Uh it was another great conversation. Thank you, Austin.

Have a great day. That's it for this episode of the PYMNTS Podcast. The thinking behind the doing. Conversations with the leaders transforming payments, commerce, and the digital economy.

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