Denario, the payment platform built for SMEs, recently secured €1.8 million in seed capital and is introducing a product that will support European firms with paying each other directly without being required to log into their banking accounts.
Pohlmann, Co-founder and CEO of Denario, said:
“With Denario, businesses can pay multiple invoices at once and will only pay when they have to. This prevents cash constrained businesses from paying too early, or too late and thereby optimizes working capital without the need to check each invoice individually.”
As noted in the update, Slack was specifically developed as a messaging platform and was created for the workplace to allow for a unique experience when communicating with colleagues.
Pohlmann explained:
“The same way that Slack is the new way to communicate in the workplace, Denario will become the new way to pay your business partners directly without any intermediary.”
According to the firm, the development of a new business payment network could benefit small businesses with less automated processes and considerable administrative overhead.
Pohlmann added:
“Our vision is to enable a seamless flow of money in a secure network that helps small businesses to gain actionable insight into their cash position while also removing costly intermediaries and manual payment processes.”
As mentioned in the announcement, the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 led to financial institutions unbundling their services such as SME lending or trade finance lending.
The fragmented structure of banking services triggered a wave of financial innovation in the years to come.
After realizing the potential in the individual services, the key players strove to “rebundle” them in their offerings.
When it comes to business payments, we have seen fairly limited unbundling, which is why innovation in this segment has been absent.
Pohlmann further noted:
“Payments can be seen as the bloodstream of our economy and therefore have become a commodity in both traditional and modern business banking. Therefore, there has been less innovation and improvement in payment processing for SMEs than in many other areas.”
Denario intends to bring innovation to business payments without having to replace existing banking infrastructure.
Any bank account may be linked to the Denario system in order to create a payment experience from receiving, to scheduling and processing, to payment reconciliation.
