By Jeff Koyen
America’s small and medium-sized businesses (“SMBs”) employ almost half (46%) of the U.S. workforce, about 59 million people,[1]
and account for 43.5% of the country’s GDP.[2] They’re also firmly on the rebound as quarterly small business employment growth returns to pre-Covid levels.[3]
Meanwhile, SMBs are becoming more globalized and connected around the world. According to PCMI market research commissioned by Visa, nearly one-third of American SMBs make cross-border payments—international transactions that often help them manage suppliers, customers and operations.[4]
Yet some major financial institutions fail to meet these clients’ needs—especially when it comes to fast, efficient and cost-effective cross-border payments.
“Small businesses often struggle with high fees, unpredictable foreign exchange rates and delays in receiving funds,” says Marwan Forzley, CEO of VEEM. “Traditional banking systems weren’t designed with speed and convenience in mind, making global payments complex, slow and expensive.”
Forzley co-founded VEEM (which stands for “Very Easy Exchange of Money”) to solve these problems. In 2022, the San Francisco-based payments platform joined a number of other digital financial services platforms that are partnering with Visa Direct to remove friction from global payments.
“Visa Direct aligned with that vision by offering real-time* payments, broader reach and scalability. … We wanted a solution that could simply integrate into our platform while delivering speed, security and global coverage for our customers,” Forzley explains. Today, VEEM delivers real-time* payments to more than 90 countries on the Visa Direct network.
So how can financial technology (fintech) innovators like VEEM close the gap between global payment expectations and real-world experiences? And how can that, in turn, help banks deliver new solutions for small businesses?
Below, explore three ways financial institutions can use emerging fintech to create a better banking experience for their SMB customers.
#1 – Improving Cashflow With Faster Cross-Border Payments
As every entrepreneur and executive knows, your business is only as strong as its balance sheet. For SMBs that rely on overseas suppliers and customers, managing cash flow can be a huge challenge. Due to the limitations of traditional banking, the process of getting paid and paying suppliers can take several days, even weeks.
That’s not a problem for Fintechs, like VEEM, that connect to the Visa Direct network.
“With Visa Direct, our customers can send payments across borders in real-time*, ensuring their beneficiaries are paid faster and avoiding operational slowdowns,” Forzley says. “It also expands access to more regions, allowing businesses to confidently engage with their customers worldwide.”
Without Visa Direct, payment platforms often rely on existing global banking infrastructure, such as SWIFT and correspondent banking, which do not meet the demands of most modern SMBs. Settling payments on traditional networks can take days.
Visa, meanwhile, provides day-after settlement, which allows clients and partners, and their SMB customers, to send funds more quickly to payees and beneficiaries.
“[SMBs] can leverage that cash flow for other things … instead of having it stuck in a settlement account,” says Jane Huynh, senior director of commercialization at Visa Direct.
Visa Direct also brings greater transparency to global payment processes, which was the case for VEEM.
“Limited visibility into payment status adds another layer of uncertainty, making cash flow management difficult,” Forzley says.
With Visa Direct, SMB customers can instead know exactly where their money is—helping them make more informed decisions.
“Real-time payments are a game-changer for accelerating SMB receivables and optimizing cash flow management,” says Rich Meszaros, head of Cross-Border Money Movement at Visa Direct.
Visa Direct helps financial institutions to solidify account primacy by embedding real-time cross-border capabilities that keep SMBs transacting within their ecosystem—reducing outflows to other providers, improving future cross-sell opportunities.
#2 – Increasing Control Over Exchange Rates
The digital economy may be global, but currency exchange rates remind us that borders still exist. When sending and receiving payments, SMBs can find themselves at the mercy of exchange rates. Imagine sending $1,000 to an overseas supplier on Monday morning, only to learn it’s worth $950 when the payment finally clears.
Real-time payments help solve this problem by reducing the settlement lifecycle. Visa Direct also offers its banking clients another tool: multi-currency accounts.
“[Our] multi-currency account infrastructure [lets] clients and customers manage and hold multiple currencies within one master account,” Huynh explains. Payments can be collected and held in numerous currencies; customers can convert these funds to U.S. dollars when the exchange rates are favorable.
Traditional banking institutions, on the other hand, convert foreign currencies according to their own schedule. Clients have no control or visibility into the process, potentially leaving a lot of money on the exchange rate table.
For SMBs that regularly transact with the same overseas customers and suppliers, converting between currencies may not even be necessary. Using multi-currency accounts, they can hold funds in foreign currency and use these accounts to conduct their back-and-forth business.
“[Multi-currency accounts] reduce the need for SMBs to have a local presence, or even have local bank accounts, which simplifies administrative overhead and can help SMBs save on FX fees,” says Yanilsa Gonzalez-Ore, senior vice president and head of Visa Direct, North America.
While foreign exchange fluctuations are unavoidable, these types of tools allow SMBs to have more control and visibility. Visa Direct enables financial institutions to offer multi-currency solutions that increase deposits and generate new revenue streams while giving SMBs more flexibility and control—all within the bank’s branded environment.
“Access to capital and managing currency fluctuations will continue to be key challenges,” Forzley says. “[VEEM is] focused on providing solutions that help SMBs mitigate risk, improve cash flow and access more payment options to remain agile in a changing market.”
#3 – Building Bigger, Better Tools For Small Business
All too often, small and medium-sized organizations can feel ignored when their banks scale up to go after bigger enterprises. SMBs working across borders may feel this even more keenly with, for example, new fee schedules that benefit higher-volume clients.
In Meszaros’ view, ignoring those SMB pain points is a mistake.
“SMBs are evolving,” he says. “Smaller businesses within this segment now have easier access to global markets for both customers and suppliers, leading to an increasing need for effective money management.”
The issue may be one of perception: Modern small businesses extend far beyond the local grocery stores or mom-and-pop pharmacies that were once unlikely to expand beyond regional markets. Today’s SMBs are comprised of startups, innovators, eager entrepreneurs and others seeking opportunities for growth.
When banks stop paying attention to the changing SMB landscape, they may—inadvertently or not—remove the features, functions and favorable fees that help SMBs compete in global markets.
When financial institutions overlook these evolving needs, they risk ceding ground to more agile fintechs that are actively courting SMBs with tailored, tech-forward offerings. The result? A gradual erosion of wallet share, weakened brand loyalty and a missed opportunity to grow long-term, high-value relationships with the next generation of business customers. Financial institutions that ignore small business needs may also find that their SMB customers start looking for other providers to fulfill them.
In the case of VEEM, Forzley embraces the SMB market as an enormous opportunity.
“Small businesses are the backbone of the global economy, and they deserve payment solutions that work for them, not against them,” he says. “We’re committed to making global payments as simple and seamless as sending an email.”
His company’s partnership with Visa Direct, he adds, “has been instrumental in making our vision a reality.”
By leveraging Visa Direct, financial institutions can differentiate in a competitive market by launching SMB-first solutions that deepen engagement, build loyalty and position themselves as an innovation partner.
*Actual funds availability depends on receiving financial institution and region.
[1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Small businesses contributed 55 percent of the total net job creation from 2013 to 2023”, May 2024. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/small-businesses-contributed-55-percent-of-the-total-net-job-creation-from-2013-to-2023.htm
[2] U.S. Small Business Administration, “Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, 2024“, July 2024. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2024/07/23/frequently-asked-questions-about-small-business-2024/#:~:text=Small%20businesses%20are%2043.5%25%20of,small%20businesses%20in%20FY%202022
[3] U.S. Small Business Administration, “Economic Bulletin, Fourth Quarter 2024”, January 2025. https://advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Economic-Bulletin-Fourth-Qtr-2024_FINAL.pdf
[4] Visa PCMI Payments & Commerce Market Intelligence, “SMB Payments–Visa Direct Market Fit Analysis”, July 2024.
