BidPay, Inc., and Helen of Troy Subsidiary to Provide Fast Payment Option for Suppliers

El Paso, TX | April 11, 2015

BidPay®, Inc., a technology company that facilitates the electronic discounting of accounts payable, announced it has entered into a formal agreement with KAZ USA, Inc. (“KAZ”), a subsidiary of Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ: HELE). Helen of Troy and subsidiaries are global designers, marketers, and distributors of personal care, household, and personal healthcare products marketed under popular brand names such as Sure®, Pert®, OXO®, and PUR®, among many others. Worldwide, Helen of Troy employs approximately 1,500 persons.

Under its agreement with KAZ, BidPay® provides a cloud-based technology that permits KAZ suppliers to obtain faster discounted payments on their approved invoices. BidPay®’s technology provides KAZ and its suppliers with a highly automated discount bidding system in which suppliers decide what discount rate, if any, they wish to offer in exchange for immediate payment on their approved invoices. Participation by suppliers is strictly optional. A study conducted by a major US bank estimates that 85% of suppliers state a willingness to occasionally or always accept discounts in exchange for faster payments from their customers.

BidPay® has the benefit of over 22 years of first-hand experience discounting $ billions of payments to thousands of supply chain participants. Millions of supply chain transactions were considered prior to BidPay®’s development of the logic algorithm that drives its proprietary dynamic pricing model. BidPay® has U.S. and international patents pending on its auction-style payable discounting platform.

BidPay® places the worldwide marketplace for trade payables available for discounting at $40 trillion USD. By most estimates, the worldwide value of trade payables is greater than the debt and equity markets combined. BidPay®’s model is currency neutral, so supplier demand is expected to be greatest among “under-banked” suppliers located not only in the U.S., but in countries with unstable or underdeveloped capital markets.

BidPay® is an El Paso-based company that finds opportunities for a worldwide client base to earn above-market, near risk-free returns on surplus short-term liquidity invested in the early retirement of trade payables.

BidPay Announces Formation of BidPay Freight

BidPay, Inc. announces the formation of  a new business unit, BidPay Freight^®, utilizing BidPay’s proprietary cloud-based accounts payable auction platform. BidPay Freight^® focuses exclusively on managing freight payable discounting auctions for supply chain shippers and logistics companies.

Over 60% of truckers factor their freight bills when they need cash. BidPay Freight^® provides some truckers with an alternative to financing and factoring freight bills. Many truckers require cash immediately upon delivery of freight. For credit-constrained truckers that are able to wait a few days until their customers review and approve their freight bills, BidPay Freight^® provides an attractive liquidity alternative.

Large shippers and logistics companies with surplus liquidity are able to actively and dynamically solicit discounts from motor carriers and owner-operators dynamically through the BidPay Freight^® online freight payment auction portal.  In the process, shipper and freight brokers earn lucrative discounts from carriers willing to discount their freight bills in exchange for faster payment. Freight brokers and logistics companies that already provide quick-pay and fuel advance programs for their cash-constrained carriers will find BidPay Freight^® to be be a more lucrative and less costly approach to freight payment discounting. 

BidPay, Inc. Officially Begins Marketing Proprietary Supply Chain Finance Technology

With the first stages of BidPay®’s technology development complete, company CEO, Tony Furman, announced earlier this week that BidPay®, Inc. has begun to license its technology and is in late-stage discussion with two prospective clients BidPay® expects will begin auctioning accounts payable by year end.

BidPay®, Inc. is an accounts payable auction technology platform that places supply chain buyers (large retailers and manufacturers, primarily) in better control of how their suppliers are paid. By giving suppliers the right to “bid” discounts in order to obtain immediate payment on approved invoices, BidPay® creates a spot liquidity marketplace for suppliers of the world’s leading companies .

“BidPay® is unable to divulge the identities of the companies with which it is in discussion until contracts are finalized; however, we plan to make a formal announcement early in 2015, naming our first two clients”, explained Furman. With the signing of its first two clients, BidPay® is capable of placing for auction over $800 million of payables in 2015. BidPay® is projected to place for auction in excess of $.5 trillion of payables annually within its first five full years of operation.

“85% of suppliers state a willingness to occasionally or always accept discounts for faster payment,” explains Furman. BidPay® simply automates the process of suppliers offering (or “bidding”) discounts through its proprietary cloud-based auction portal. Any supplier of any company that licenses BidPay®’s technology is capable of obtaining “payment-on-demand” directly from their customers in exchange for discount offers–typically in the 0.5% to 5.0% range, depending on how many days remain between the auction date and the invoices’ “payment due dates.” Buyers set their own financial objectives for each auction and suppliers bid for a finite amount of funds buyers are willing to make available in each auction to retire their payables early. BidPay runs payable auctions 24-hours in duration every Tuesday at noon Central Time.

Although a few of the world’s largest companies employ models that allow their suppliers to offer discounts for faster payment, they lack the most valuable and proprietary BidPay® features. BidPay®’s auction platform, on which BidPay® holds perpetual exclusive licensing rights, makes it impossible for suppliers to predict the cost of prompt payment. Shortcomings in competing models abound. For example, most prompt-payment-for-discount models are unreliable, do not consistently provide suppliers access to cash when their suppliers’ cash needs are at their greatest , and fail to expand for suppliers, the “discount opportunity window” when those cash needs arise–most typically between the 10th and 50th day following their delivery of goods.

“Our studies show that in order for a buyer-funded prompt-payment system to be of benefit to both the buyer and its supplier, there are only two requirements: First, the buyer must be able and willing to voucher their payables in a more timely manner, so that they may offer a quick-pay option on vouchered (approved) payments within a window of 10 to 15 days from receipt of goods. Secondly, the buyer must have sufficient surplus short-term liquidity or financing capacity to retire trade payables early at a discount on a fairly consistent basis. Either way, BidPay® produces double-digit risk-free annualized returns for buyers, net of their financing costs.

“The most significant shortcoming of other supply chain finance models is that they invariably fail to produce balanced benefits for both buyers and their suppliers,” Furman adds. BidPay® was designed from inception to create a balanced supply chain “supply/demand equilibrium” where both buyers and suppliers voluntarily participate because it produces equally compelling benefits for both parties.

For the 85% of suppliers willing to occasionally or always accept discounts for faster payment, BidPay® is the only supply chain finance technology product on the market that produces efficiencies great enough to deliver faster payment to suppliers while providing double-digit risk free returns to buyers willing to retire their payables early at a market discount rate established within their supplier community.

For information and a video presentation of how BidPay® works, visit bidpayment.com.