How Allianz Trade pay covers buyer ID fraud risk for online stores

The global market for business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is booming, and online sales are expected to hit $36 trillion this year. And while this represents a big moment for our customers, with such promising opportunities also comes the need for thorough oversight. In order to stay competitive and establish long-term buyer-seller relationships, our customers need to offer fast and streamlined payment options with credit terms, while ensuring every single transaction is secure.

Managing the trade-off between safety and smooth customer journeys

The moment online sellers open their webstores, they can encounter unfamiliar buyers. Not knowing these buyers’ legitimacy and creditworthiness puts them in a vulnerable situation and can expose their business to buyer ID fraud attempts. We have estimated that when it comes to B2B online transactions, for every euro lost to fraud, businesses end up spending three euros dealing with the fallout. And fraud doesn’t just stop at the financial hit: it can also cause reputational damage and affect relationships with other customers.

At the same time, B2B companies are expected to offer frictionless journeys to their customers, much like in B2C transactions. In this market, everything starts from small invoices, and typically grow as confidence and trust between parties increase too. For this reason, sellers need to offer smooth and seamless customer journeys that encourage their customers to return, repeat their purchases, and grow their basket size. Extending credit or flexible payment terms online (just as they are done offline) is a must, but many B2B companies still struggle to do so. In fact, we’ve found that 95% of B2B want to offer credit terms in online transactions, but only 10% currently do so because the risks involved are not well managed.

The risk of buyer ID fraud is heightened without proper security checks on both the company and the individual making a purchase on its behalf, and the risk of losing out on business opportunities is heightened with a painful customer journey. There’s a delicate balance to strike between two requirements, but we don’t believe that one has to come at the expense of the other.

Where does Know Your Buyer come in?

In order to address these concerns and offer robust fraud checks without compromising business growth, we created an integrated Know Your Buyer module in Allianz Trade pay. This builds on its existing features (real-time credit risk assessment, trade credit insurance and financing), and adds a powerful element of security for our customers without adding onerous steps to their online platforms.

The KYB feature in Allianz Trade pay is an add-on that works with Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Basically, when a first-time buyer enters the website, we receive an API onboarding request to identify the buyer. Then we perform all the necessary identity checks, and as soon as we match the identity of the company the purchase can proceed. We are able to perform these checks thanks to our database of 289 million companies worldwide - the same one that enables traditional credit assessment and underwriting. Open Banking, in markets where it’s available, also supports this. Intense collaboration between information providers, our customers, their buyers, and us make all of this possible.

KYB is designed to adapt to a wide range of business contexts rather than follow a rigid, one‑size‑fits‑all model. For instance, around 50% of our customers leverage online buyer and prospect registration as part of their purchasing journey, enabling KYB checks to be seamlessly integrated upstream. More broadly, the way KYB is deployed reflects each company’s specific environment — including its buyer journey — ensuring the solution supports both compliance needs and commercial objectives.

Enabling and supporting the growth of the B2B e-commerce

In a market where trust is the foundation of long-term business relationships, Allianz Trade pay empowers companies to build confidence with their customers, while leaving the burden of buyer identification to us.

Allianz Trade pay is a bridge between traditional TCI and fintech - what we have built is a digital solution that brings value to both our customers and their buyers. Our digital platform supports the growth of B2B e-commerce by helping companies stay competitive in an ever-evolving digital landscape, showing that they don’t need to compromise on business growth or on security as they digitalize their customer journey.