UMB Bank will start offering its business clients a new payment solution that will help customers streamline payments by automating certain processes starting in Q2 this year.

“This solution is predominantly for business customers,” Uma Wilson, executive vice president and director of product management at UMB Bank told Bank Innovation. “It automates what comes after the customer approves the invoice. We aren’t trying to influence the payer-vendor relation but the processes that happen after ERP integration.” 

The hope, Wilson explained, is to create efficiencies for our customers, yield lower account payable costs, improve routing and increase security and transparency. 

For this offering, UMB has partnered with Portsmouth, N.H.-based fintech Bottomline Technologies, and will use its Paymode-X solutions through Visa Payables network. 

Customers will be able to pay suppliers via Visa-powered virtual cards, but also ACH transfers and checks through a single payment file, Rob Eberle, CEO at Bottomline Technologies told Bank Innovation. 

When asked why checks — isn’t the goal to push American business away from using checks? Eberle said, “in the case where it’s a one-time payment to a one-off vendor, checks are the best option.”

The Paymode-X platform uses artificial intelligence and analytics to determine the best method of payment. Bottomline Technologies will register all the client’s vendors, creating a seamless way for businesses to select the vendor and payment options. 

The need for this solution came from customer demand, UMB’s Wilson said.

“Automation of business payments has been very very slow,” Eberle said. “Things like remittance details, technology, compliance, system integration, and invoice complexities makes it harder, but the business customers are comparing their experiences in business to the consumer world.”

The Paymode-X solution, however, is payer-centric and doesn’t allow for a supplier to request payments.

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This “request for payment” feature is a fundamental realtime payments offering, “the concept is trickling down to other payments operations,” Wilson acknowledges, “but, right now we want to remove as much as friction as possible in money movement where we can.”

And indeed realtime payments, including the ability to request payments, won’t be available nationwide for another two years at least.

“Payments is critical,” Wilson said. “We are actively evaluating real-time payment on our side. Absolutely we understand the value, and still exploring our options.”

The Paymode-X offering will available to UMB customers in the next quarter. The bank will pilot the solution internally in the coming weeks, Wilson said.

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