American Express survey shows B2B spending will continue to rise

Share this post

The 2017 Global Business and Spending Outlook, sponsored by American Express, has been published, and despite the current uncertain global economic and political climate there appears to be nothing for payments companies to be concerned about, with 99% of survey participants revealing that they plan to increase spending and investment over the next 12 months.

The survey interviewed 100 CFOs from leading companies, half of which exceed $1bn in annual revenue, giving a good indication that the people with financial influence in critical companies to the markets are prepared to continue leading the way with B2B spending.

Moderate spending and investment to support top line growth dominated spending and investment plans response at 86%, with a further 10% of those surveyed describing their spending plans as aggressive. This translated into 51% of companies projecting an increase in spending of 4-8%, 6% of respondents planning to increase spending by more than 20%, and 3% planning to increasing spending by more than 30%.

Remaining competitive and increasing competitive advantage were the main reasons given for increased spend.

Improving cash and working-capital management was also noted as being somewhat more important in the next 12 months, which should also come as welcome news to fintechs looking to develop technology in this area.

Specifically, end-to-end visibility in the transaction process was highlighted as an area where major corporations wish to improve their payments and spending procedure, with 98% of survey participants agreeing that this would yield substantial financial benefit.

Overall the report spells positive signs for the payments industry and fintech in general, with CFOs seemingly willing to both increase payments within the business and also being committed to improving aspects of the payments process through improved technology.

Of course projections can never be completely relied upon, and there is certainly scope for even greater uncertainty to rock the geo-economic climate in the coming weeks and months, but for the foreseeable future the future still looks bright for the B2B payments industry.

More To Explore

Membership

Are you a member of The Payments Association?

Member benefits include free tickets, discounts to more tickets, elevated brand visibility and more. Sign in to book tickets and find out more.

Welcome

Log in to access complimentary passes or discounts and access exclusive content as part of your membership. An auto-login link will be sent directly to your email.

Having trouble signing?

We use an auto-login link to ensure optimum security for your members hub. Simply enter your professional work e-mail address into the input area and you’ll receive a link to directly access your account.

First things first

Have you set up your Member account yet? If not, click here to do so.

Still not receiving your auto-login link?

Instead of using passwords, we e-mail you a link to log in to the site. This allows us to automatically verify you and apply member benefits based on your e-mail domain name.

Please click the button below which relates to the issue you’re having.

I didn't receive an e-mail

Tip: Check your spam

Sometimes our e-mails end up in spam. Make sure to check your spam folder for e-mails from The Payments Association

Tip: Check “other” tabs

Most modern e-mail clients now separate e-mails into different tabs. For example, Outlook has an “Other” tab, and Gmail has tabs for different types of e-mails, such as promotional.

Tip: Click the link within 60 minutes

For security reasons the link will expire after 60 minutes. Try submitting the login form again and wait a few seconds for the e-mail to arrive.

Tip: Only click once

The link will only work one time – once it’s been clicked, the link won’t log you in again. Instead, you’ll need to go back to the login screen and generate a new link.

Tip: Delete old login e-mails

Make sure you’re clicking the link on the most recent e-mail that’s been sent to you. We recommend deleting the e-mail once you’ve clicked the link.

Tip: Check your security policies

Some security systems will automatically click on links in e-mails to check for phishing, malware, viruses and other malicious threats. If these have been clicked, it won’t work when you try to click on the link.

Need to change your e-mail address?

For security reasons, e-mail address changes can only be complete by your Member Engagement Manager. Please contact the team directly for further help.

Still got a question?