By Tim Annis, CEO, Bluechain
When Travis Perkins extended its payment terms to 90 days last November, the construction sector bristled. Critics called it predatory. But for Travis Perkins, the logic was simple: longer terms mean more cash on hand. That calculation is not unique to one company. Across UK business, late payment is treated as a character flaw, something to be solved through public pressure, league tables and government campaigns. None of it has worked, because the diagnosis is wrong. Businesses rely on payment infrastructure that makes delaying the rational choice: invoices sent as PDF email attachments, systems that cannot share data, and suppliers limited to bank transfers. Decades of effort to change behaviour have failed because almost nobody has seriously questioned the infrastructure driving it.
The shaming campaign that never worked
The UK has tried payment codes, prompt payment leagues, the Duty to Report and public naming of the worst offenders. Yet the problem persists. Even mandating payment terms, as France has done, only addresses half the issue. Terms are not the same as actuals. A 30-day term means nothing if the invoice lands in the wrong inbox, sits in an approval queue, or gets lost between systems. Process friction turns good intentions into late payments regardless of what the contract says.
This pattern repeats because the interventions target the wrong layer. Telling businesses to pay faster while leaving them with disconnected invoicing and manual reconciliation is like asking drivers to speed up on a road full of potholes. Disconnected invoicing, manual reconciliation, limited payment options: businesses are told to pay faster while using infrastructure that rewards delay. And a business that delays payment by 15 days gains 15 days of additional cashflow. That’s a fact, whether it’s right or wrong.
What broken payment rails actually cost
The price of outdated payment infrastructure goes well beyond late invoices. UK SMEs spend more than 33 hours a month on payment administration: days spent chasing payments through email and re-entering data between systems that were never designed to work together.
The risks run deeper than wasted time. Invoice interception fraud, where someone intercepts a PDF invoice, changes the bank details and forwards it on, is a growing threat in systems built on email. Businesses have lost tens of thousands of pounds to fraudsters exploiting this weakness. When a main contractor pays in 90 days but subcontractors expect payment in 45, that 45-day gap does not disappear. It gets pushed down the supply chain, where smaller businesses with less access to capital absorb the cost.
What fixing the infrastructure looks like
The real problem with late payments isn’t behaviour. It’s plumbing.
Today’s B2B payment processes are stitched together from point solutions that were never designed to work end to end. Invoices are generated in one system, approved in another, paid through a separate rail, and reconciled somewhere else entirely. Much of that journey still relies on emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, and repeated manual entry.
The result is friction everywhere: limited visibility once an invoice leaves the building, multiple hand-offs between teams, disconnected payment rails, and constant rekeying of the same data. Payments go missing, approvals stall, fraud risk increases, and finance teams spend their time chasing rather than managing cash flow.
The answer is not another bolt-on tool. Fragmented, point-to-point workflows need replacing with shared infrastructure that connects the full process of paying and getting paid.
That’s the approach Bluechain takes. By sitting between business systems and the payment rails, Bluechain creates a single, connected flow from invoice to settlement. Businesses can issue, approve, pay, and reconcile payments in one continuous process, regardless of how either side prefers to pay. Visibility is built in, reconciliation is automatic, and manual intervention largely disappears.
Businesses already on this kind of infrastructure report real improvements. Failed payments drop, settlement accelerates, and finance teams shift from reactive chasing to proactive cash flow management.
For leaders serious about tackling late payments, the starting point is practical, not cultural. Audit the process end to end. Identify where data breaks, where humans re-enter information, and where payments detach from the systems that created them. Late payments won’t be solved by asking people to try harder. They’ll be solved by giving businesses infrastructure where paying on time is simply the easiest path.
