Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) today announced a significant milestone with the acquisition of the 50,000th vendor to participate in its large and rapidly growing PayMode network.
Through this network, which facilitates the electronic exchange of invoices and payments between businesses and their suppliers, Bank of America's clients can pay about 30 percent of their targeted vendors on day one and up to 75 percent within the first 12 weeks, enabling immediate processing and cost efficiencies.
To date, the PayMode network, a component of Bank of America's Electronic Payment Services suite, Comprehensive Payables, has processed more than $225 billion in transactions within its high-performance platform. New vendors are being added at the rate of approximately 2,000 per month. Since April 2007, transactions processed through the network have grown 65 percent and the client base -- now more than 425 companies -- has expanded 64 percent.
"Electronic invoice and payment processing represents the next wave of solutions that can maximize supply-chain efficiency," said Kevin Phalen, Global Product Solutions Integrated Debt and Treasury executive. "The milestone of reaching 50,000 vendors and our high client retention rate show that we have the most comprehensive network available to meet any client's supply-chain needs. We are committed to continue driving immediate process innovations and cost savings for our clients."
Bank of America's Comprehensive Payables suite increases the speed and efficiency of a client's payments by converting checks to electronic card and ACH payments. The suite includes PayMode and ePayables. As one of the few fully-integrated "many-to-many" networks, PayMode allows any payer to pay any enrolled supplier on the network. The PayMode network has experienced a near 100 percent vendor retention rate due to its flexibility and ease of use.
"PayMode was implemented quickly with minimal involvement from our IT staff. We were very impressed with how rapidly the vendors adopted PayMode," said Phil Charron, controller of Chelsea/Webster Industries. "In just five months, we were paying 60 percent of our targeted vendor payments via PayMode. It has exceeded our expectations."