Billhop and ICS Partner to Improve Working Capital for SMEs Across the Netherlands

  • Payments , Credit Cards
  • 22.06.2021 12:35 pm

Billhop (www.billhop.com), the Swedish payment platform that allows businesses to pay invoices by card regardless of whether the receiver accepts cards, has today announced a new partnership with International Card Services (ICS), the largest credit card provider in the Netherlands, to help Dutch businesses improve their cash flow and close liquidity gaps.

As part of the agreement, ICS commercial cardholders will have access to Billhop’s service at a preferential rate and will thereby be able to pay suppliers using any card, regardless of whether the supplier accepts card payments. Through Billhop, businesses can pay their suppliers instantaneously without needing to on-board the end beneficiary, while taking advantage of the interest-free payment period offered by card issuers. This allows businesses to extend their payment terms, significantly strengthen their liquidity cushion and ensure a more efficient distribution of their cash flow.

Billhop currently serves over 50,000 SMEs, sole traders and large corporations across Europe, having already expanded to key markets including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands. In the midst of the pandemic, as government aid is gradually being discontinued, and as SMEs are experiencing shrinking liquidity margins, Billhop has seen a dramatic increase in the demand for its service.

Over the past year, a rising number of businesses have been using Billhop in order to benefit from the increased working capital flexibility their credit cards offer, and to find an alternative way to finance their growth and dilute the volatility in their cash resources. In particular, the total transactions processed via Billhop, across all of its customer segments, exceeded €270M in 2020. 

Tashi Gauffin, Chief Commercial Officer of Billhop, said: “We are really excited to partner with the largest credit card issuer of the Netherlands. ICS has a first-class organisation and product portfolio and we look forward to servicing ICS’s customers with our working capital management tools.”

Glenn MacDonald, Chief Commercial Officer at ICS, said: “Businesses are increasingly turning to cards as their payment method of choice, namely for the convenience and simplicity cards offer. However, low card acceptance within the B2B space has for long been the biggest obstacle to increasing the adoption of commercial credit cards. We’re very happy to now be able to help our cardholders by opening up our credit cards for all types of supplier invoices, as well as providing them with a very practical cashflow management tool.”

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