Taulia and IFC: Building Sustainable Supply Chain Finance

With its network of more than three million businesses, Taulia helps the world's biggest companies support their suppliers with early repayment and contribute to sustainable supply chains.

Now, in a bid to power emerging markets, Taulia has joined forces with the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—member of the World Bank Group—to build sustainable supply chain finance programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets. 

IFC becomes Taulia’s inaugural multilateral funder and adds to its ever-growing multi-funder network, enabling the business to access an increasingly broad and diverse funding pool. 

“Our collaboration with IFC is a significant step forward for Taulia in expanding our reach in emerging markets and supporting SMEs in accessing cash,” comments Cedric Bru, CEO at Taulia.

“The combination of IFC’s international expertise with Taulia’s technology will enable corporations to optimise their working capital so they can pursue opportunities that require extra liquidity.”

Taulia: Building sustainable supply chains

Headquartered in the technology heartland of San Francisco, Taulia helps companies access value tied up in their payables, receivables and inventory.

Its platform and network of more than three million businesses enables customers to execute their working capital strategies, support suppliers with early payment and contribute to building sustainable supply chains. 

Taulia’s growing size and influence is demonstrated by the fact it processes more than US$500bn each year and is trusted by heavyweight companies including Airbus, AstraZeneca and Nissan, to name a few. 

In 2022, technology giant SAP completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Taulia, further expanding the former’s business network and strengthening its solutions for the CFO office. 

Enhanced access to financing solutions

As an industry leader in the field of ESG financing, the IFC is set to assist Taulia in developing its sustainable supply chain financing programmes, supporting SMEs in emerging markets—where opportunities are often limited—with enhanced access to financing solutions.

By combining Taulia’s supply chain financing technology with the IFC’s global reach and influence, the collaboration aims to offer efficient and sustainable solutions for SMEs using early payments and working capital programs. 

What’s more, the collaboration will draw on the IFC’s own deepening commitment to sustainable supply chain finance as part of its Global Trade Supplier Finance (GTSF) programme, which recently doubled in size to US$1bn and extends financial discounts to emerging market suppliers that improve their social and environmental performance.

The first-ever financial platform to provide sustainability-linked discounts on short-term working capital, the GTSF programme works with global brands to drive improvements among supply chain partners, boosting environmental performance, gender inclusivity and more.

“Smaller firms are the engine of growth and job creation in emerging markets, but it’s precisely these businesses that often struggle to obtain the working capital they need to thrive,” adds Femi Akinrebiyo, Global Manager for Manufacturing and Trade Supplier Finance at the IFC.

“We’re proud to support SMEs through our new collaboration with Taulia, which will draw on the IFC’s pioneering work in sustainable supply chain finance.”

What is SAP Business Network?

SAP's acquisition of Taulia saw the latter became a working capital management solution within the SAP Business Network. 

In short, SAP Business Network is designed to power transparency, resilience and sustainability by connecting people, processes and systems across multiple enterprises.

The result is the digitisation of transactions and creation of transparent, resilient and sustainable supply chains.

Speaking to SupplyChain Digital during SAP Spend Connect Live last year, Tony Harris, SVP and Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer at SAP Business Network, revealed the network was involved in an annual spend of US$4.9tn and had seen a 14% growth in transactional relationships over the preceding 12 months. 

“The figure on spend is not cumulative," he said. "This is what we do every year, and that number is generally only going up.”

Harris also discussed the network's continued innovation in the areas of generative AI and supplier onboarding.

He added: "A network is only a network when you've got both buyers and suppliers. We have millions and millions of suppliers, and this only continues to grow."

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