From Cash to Code: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming B2B Payments Collection

The digital transformation of B2B commerce in emerging markets particularly in regions like Egypt is reshaping how merchants and distributors interact, trade, and grow. Traditionally reliant on fragmented systems and cash-based transactions, the B2B ecosystem has long faced challenges such as limited product access, inefficient cash collection, high operational risks, and a lack of financing options. Today, fintech-powered platforms and super apps are solving these pain points by enabling seamless product sourcing, instant digital payments, and accessible microfinancing all through a single, unified interface. This evolution not only empowers merchants with greater flexibility, reach, and financial inclusion, but also allows distributors to scale more efficiently, reduce costs, and expand their market coverage.

Today, we have the honor of interviewing Khaled Ghoz , FinTech Consultant Expert to explore how these innovations are driving a new era of efficiency, transparency, and growth across the B2B landscape.

In what ways has digital payment collection strengthened trust and efficiency between merchants and distributors?

The relationship between merchant and distributor is a simple trading relation, goods vs. money and usually in wholesaling the payment are not in full, otherwise it goes in scheduled payments across the same month, this helps the merchants to have the chance to sell to consumers and collect money, and also keep the pool of returned goods with short lifetime (i.e. some dairy products), the major issue in such relationship is the burden of cash collection and delivery till it reaches the distributor bank account to help him refill his main warehouse from manufacturers/importers, the time consuming and costly cycle of payment collections limits the capability of distributors to expand supply limits to merchants. When digital payments shown up it helped to eliminate any time delays in collections with less cost and zero risks, that helped the suppliers to expand the pooling with each merchant and helped the merchants accordingly to expand their shops trading volume vertically.

What are the key technological innovations driving the shift from cash to digital in B2B payments?

Most of B2B payment collection successful models counted on major key points; equipping merchants with a digital financial tool (such as an e-wallet, prepaid card, fintech merchant account, or virtual closed-loop account), providing a low-cost and accessible method for merchants to top up their accounts, enabling distributor sales agents with tools to accept digital payments, offering distributors a simple way to manage agents, track collections in real time, and generate reports, and finally, ensuring an easy and cost-effective method for distributors to transfer collected funds to their bank accounts. Fintech companies that have addressed these needs have created a win-win ecosystem, streamlining payment flows and boosting trade between distributors and merchants.

How is the adoption of mobile-first solutions helping digitize merchant payments in rural or underbanked areas?

When it comes to rural areas and underbanked communities this means no or limited banking services, limited cards based, and limited acceptance base, here we can see how mobile solutions occurred to capitalize on the small feature or smart mobile in hand of almost every walking customer, it made it easy for him to have financial services without any complications, no need for branches, no need for ATMs, and even no need for POSs, it made every single mobile a virtual account so the customer can easily top-up (by remittance, by cash, by card, etc.) and easily pay to merchant in a single click. The adoption didn’t take much time cause the mobile payment apps used the existing customer adoption on his mobile to make calls, if it’s a feature phone you can use the USSD service to cash-in, cashout, and pay to merchant, if it’s a smartphone consumer can do it even easier than he uses social media apps.

What impact has digitization had on transparency, fraud reduction, and reconciliation processes in B2B collections?

As outlined in Q1, traditional B2B cash collection comes with numerous inefficiencies and risks. However, digitizing payment collection through fintech solutions has turned these drawbacks into advantages—while also introducing unexpected added benefits. With no physical cash involved, there’s no concern over small banknotes or the high cost of processing them, no risk of counterfeit money, and no need for costly theft or fraud insurance for sales agents. The elimination of cash also removes the need for secure transport, late-night hubs, or extra office resources like accountants and security. Moreover, digital transactions reduce the cost of transferring funds to the distributor’s bank account and provide real-time visibility into collections by merchant and sales agent. Most notably, the transaction time between sales agents and merchants has dropped by 30% to 50%, enabling agents to serve more merchants per day and ultimately boosting operational efficiency and sales coverage.

What are the most common pain points businesses face in manual B2B collection today?

Cash-based payment collection presents numerous challenges for distributors. In markets like Egypt, collections are often made in small denominations (e.g., 5 to 50 EGP notes), making cash handling and bank deposits burdensome. There's also a high risk of counterfeit money, along with significant costs tied to theft and fraud insurance for each sales agent. Distributors bear daily expenses for transporting large sums of collected cash (ranging from 50K to 200K EGP per agent), operating hubs late into the night to receive funds—incurring costs for accountants, security, and logistics—and ultimately transferring millions of EGP to bank accounts across distribution regions. Additionally, with cash collections, distributors face limited visibility into the types and sources of collected payments, lacking the ability to track contributions by specific merchants and sales agents in real time.

How are digital platforms helping solve issues like delayed payments, reconciliation errors, and high transaction costs?

Traditional banked systems involve a complex web of intermediaries such as POS terminals, acquirers, issuers, and central switches—which can delay card transaction settlements for up to two business days before funds reach a merchant’s account. In contrast, fintech digital platforms have streamlined this process by bypassing many of these layers, while still adhering to regulatory and security standards. As a result, payments are processed much faster often instantly reconciliation becomes simpler with fewer errors, and transaction costs are significantly reduced. For example, in Egypt, transferring money from Bank A to Bank B through traditional ACH channels is limited to banking hours (Sunday to Thursday, 8:30 am to 3:00 pm), takes up to one business day, and requires detailed recipient information, incurring moderate to high fees. In comparison, fintech services like InstaPay offer 24/7 instant transfers in seconds, with minimal to no cost, requiring only the recipient’s email or mobile number—demonstrating how digital platforms are effectively solving the issues of payment delays, reconciliation errors, and high transaction costs.

What regulatory or infrastructure challenges still need to be addressed in MENA?

It differs from country to country in the region, but we can say that regulations has been built step by step to balance between the market growing demand and service security, it’s always a tradeoff between simplicity and consumer security considering the AML and fraud protections, but we can brief that most of MENA region regulations managed such growth in Fintech services in a very good approach the balance this tradeoff, most of regulatory authorities and central banks increased their staff experience in several areas to cope with growing needs for fintech services in the region, most of central banks now has considerable team with heavy experience in (cyber security, AML, sanction, e-KYC, etc.) these capabilities wasn’t there like 10 to 15 years ago, but when it came to market demand central bank was sufficient to cope with market demands without risking consumer security.

How are super apps evolving to support B2B transactions and not just consumer payments?

The B2B sector in the region has several critical needs, starting with access to a wide variety of wholesale products through e-commerce platforms. This breaks monopolies, enhances reach, and allows merchants to connect with multiple distributors offering competitive prices. Another key need is micro-financing and digital lending, especially to support merchants during seasonal demand spikes for instance, purchasing Yameesh before Ramadan or Ka7k before Eid El-Fitr where short-term financing helps capitalize on these sales opportunities. Digital payments also play a crucial role by eliminating the logistical burden of cash collection, enabling suppliers to scale more easily. While several companies in Egypt offer these services separately, the fragmentation leaves merchants juggling multiple apps and financing entities unable to share credit data. Super apps have emerged as a comprehensive solution: they allow merchants to browse and order wholesale products, choose from multiple BNPL or financing options before checkout, pay digitally through the app, and even manage additional services like utility, telecom, internet, and tax payments all within a single, integrated platform.

What makes the MENA region particularly fertile ground for the rise of super apps?

Super apps usually succeed in underbanked and cash communities looking for smart services similar to banking services with less cost and complications, and this’s what you can find in our MENA region. If you check the north Africa region till the moment cash is king, and percentage of banked communities is low to medium in individuals but in B2B it’s mostly cash, also in gulf region whom have majority of community is banked you will find B2B specially in FMCG and pharmaceutical industries are totally in cash.

How are merchants and distributors benefiting from integrated financial services within these platforms?

As previously discussed, the benefits of digital B2B solutions are mutual for both merchants and distributors. Merchants gain easy access to a wide range of wholesale products from multiple distributors, breaking monopolies and offering competitive choices. They also benefit from accessible microfinance options like BNPL, with the added advantage of building a credit history to improve future financing opportunities. Digital payments eliminate the hassle of managing cash, making transactions smoother and more secure. On the other side, distributors can expand their reach beyond limited geographic areas to serve merchants nationwide. They also benefit from streamlined digital payment collection, removing the costs and risks associated with handling cash. Additionally, with faster, cashless transactions reducing visit time by up to 50%, sales agents can cover more merchants in a day—boosting sales efficiency while lowering operational costs.

What risks or challenges come with concentrating multiple financial functions into a single app?

Here no presence for risks but for sure there’re challenges, for challenges we can find the services provider (such as distributors or Microfinancing entities) acceptance to avail their services with competitors at same time in same super app to merchants, but this challenges decline with time when service providers and distributors notice the growth of super apps with market high demand and quick adoption of the market, by that time they decide to enter the competition to not lose opportunities.

Khaled Ghoz , FinTech Consultant Expert

Khaled Ghoz is A highly standard FinTech consultant with success stories for 23 years, out of it 14 years in FinTech industry, widely connected to strategic players and regulators in Fintech domain in MENA region. With experience in financial inclusion and FinTech ecosystems development to several African and Asian markets. Offer expertise in startups establishment & defining business strategies up to operating mega scale multi-million dollar fintech services.