Aria CEO Clément Carrier on the Future of B2B Payments

Clément Carrier, CEO and co-founder of Aria, is helping to reshape how businesses manage payments, credit and cash flow. In this Q&A, he discusses the problems Aria was built to solve, the challenges of scaling a fintech company and how B2B payments are likely to evolve.

What problem is Aria solving for European businesses today? 

Late payments remain a chronic threat to European competitiveness, bankrupting small businesses and constraining broader economic growth. The EU Payment Observatory estimates that tackling this issue could unlock over €100bn in additional cash flow each year, providing a lifeline for capital-strapped companies, 65% of which already struggle to access external finance.

This is the problem I set Aria up to solve in 2020, after experiencing firsthand the financial stress and existential threat posed by late payments as a freelance data scientist in Paris. I was trapped in the same vicious cycle many small business owners find themselves in, where late payments damage cash flow, undermine your creditworthiness, and, in turn, your ability to access finance, as banks offer less favourable loan conditions. It’s a doom spiral few entrepreneurs manage to escape from. 

We’re tackling this problem head-on at Aria, helping businesses get paid on time by embedding invoice financing directly into the B2B platforms where transactions occur. We plug into marketplaces, vertical software providers, and procurement platforms so suppliers can get paid promptly, while buyers retain the payment terms they need to manage their working capital. 

We work with more than 80 B2B marketplaces, freelance platforms, and vertical software companies across Europe, helping them integrate invoice financing without building their own financial infrastructure from scratch. 

Which sectors are most affected by late payments, and what can businesses do differently to manage the impact?

The sectors most vulnerable to late payments are those forced to spend money before they are reimbursed. In other words, they are victims of timing more than performance. 

Transport and logistics is one of the hardest hit sectors, accounting for 12% of the total formal complaints submitted to the UK’s Small Business Commissioner’s casework team last year. This is a significantly outsized share, given the sector represents 5% of UK jobs. Operators must contend with fixed and immediate costs – such as fuel, toll payments, driver wages, and vehicle maintenance – while payments may only arrive long after delivery has been completed. Not to mention that cross-border transactions slow payment transfers even further, as there’s a patchwork of laws and regulations to contend with. All this has a cascading effect on the entire supply chain, where businesses end up delaying their own payments because they themselves are paid late. Many of these businesses operate on thin margins and are unable to absorb longer payment timelines, with the Road Haulage Association (RHA), the UK transport trade body, already pointing out that 400 hauliers went bust in 2025. 

These acute effects are also felt in staffing and recruitment, but for slightly different reasons. Payroll is often funded upfront before the client settles an invoice, meaning cash goes out before it comes in. And the problem is only getting worse, as research from the UK’s Recruitment & Employment Confederation shows that 62% of SMEs are facing longer payment timelines compared to a year ago. That cash flow strain stymies growth, where nearly a third of recruitment agencies say faster client payments would ease the pressure.

Unfortunately, solving late payments isn’t so simple as chasing invoices harder or more persistently. In fact, European SMEs already spend, on average, 9.85 hours a week chasing late payments; a considerable burden for small businesses short on staff. 

What businesses can do is treat payment risk and working capital as operational priorities from the outset. To do that, leaders must set payment expectations early and clearly stipulate payment deadlines in contracts. The Small Business Commissioner suggests one of the key reasons for late payments in transport and logistics is issuers failing to provide all the necessary information on invoices. In my experience, that kind of ambiguity also gives larger payers convenient cover to delay, so your best bet is to ensure all information is correct and complete. Another helpful tactic is to incorporate incentives into contracts, such as offering a small discount for early payments. Even shaving off a mere 1-2% of the full price for payment within two weeks is enough to breathe life into your cash flow. 

The UK is proposing new late payments legislation via the Commercial Payments Bill. What would meaningful reform look like for small businesses, and what can Europe learn from this? 

Meaningful reform would give business leaders clearer rights and grant practical avenues to assert them. Capping payment terms at 60 days and introducing mandatory interest on late payments are steps in the right direction, but the most promising development is giving the Small Business Commissioner more power to investigate persistent poor payment practices and resolve disputes. Previous frameworks, like the Prompt Payment code, set the same 60-day expectation but couldn’t enforce it. Whether that materialises in practice remains to be seen. But the legislation is still progressing through Parliament, so it will take some time yet. 

The larger problem that remains unaddressed is that, at its core, late payments are also a cultural issue. The power imbalance between small suppliers and big buyers means the former feels ill-equipped to chase the latter. You don’t want to risk losing your biggest client by harassing them for payment. While the new legislation would give business owners legal backing to charge interest on overdue invoices or enlist the help of the Small Business Commissioner, a legal right you’re too uncomfortable to exercise isn’t much of a right at all.

Beyond the practical advice I offered beforehand, a vision Europe can all aspire to is to stop treating late payments as standard business practice. For too long has this become a regular fixture, with some businesses cynically using it as an ‘unarranged overdraft’ or deploying it as a ‘cash flow management tool’. Leaders must recognise they are gambling with others’ livelihoods and strive to be fair and professional in business dealings. 

AI is changing the way businesses operate day to day. What is one business process that you think will most likely be disrupted? 

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is about to change fundamentally because of AI. 

Most ERP systems today – a software that helps businesses manage day-to-day operations by stitching together core business processes like finance, HR, manufacturing, and supply chain into a single database – are too basic and fall short of fulfilling their potential. In many cases, users manually input transactions and match invoices with limited orchestration across systems. 

This whole process is ripe for automation. The rapid development of AI means agents can now read documents, orchestrate workflows, and flag anomalies faster and more accurately than any human ever could. McKinsey’s research suggests this could cut the effort needed to implement and run ERP processes by 50% or more, with early adopters already reporting EBIT improvements of 5% or higher. 

That said, business leaders should be wary of treating AI as a one-size-fits-all tool. Whereas AI may be useful in handling the operational layer of ERP, there must be caution around judgment calls that carry financial risk. 

Looking ahead, what should European business leaders prioritise to improve cash flow and resilience over the next 12 to 24 months?

First and foremost, CEOs should treat cash flow as an operational priority across the company. Gone are the days when this was the preserve of the finance department; every employee can play their part, particularly in early-stage businesses. That involves analysing contracts rigorously, identifying customer risk concentration, and staying on top of admin. Provide AI training for your employees, and ensure they have the proficiency to connect all necessary information and data points into the company’s ERP system to extract maximum value. After all, the output is only as good as the quality of the inputs. 

Second, business leaders must embrace AI without believing it to be the silver bullet solution to all their problems. It’s not as simple as plugging it in for anything and everything. Leaders must be cynical and approach every AI integration with risk in front of their minds, and then consider what it can do to make a business outcome better, faster, and safer. Begin with the end in mind, as the famous Stephen Covey quote goes, and only scale when the evidence supports it. 

At Aria, we use AI for easily automatable workflows – everything from reconciliation to document processing – and for pattern recognition workflows like fraud detection. Those are repeatable, low-risk processes that deliver tangible value. What we don’t use AI for is where human judgment is essential, where a wrong decision spells financial losses. In making credit decisions, where the business has all the ingredients to make an informed decision (namely, that the buyer has agreed to pay and is financially sound), introducing an AI model is superfluous and creates more risk than reward. Those types of decisions shouldn’t be left to black-box AI models.