Louis Carbonnier (Co-CEO and Commercial Director, Hokodo) recently spoke with Louis Wapler (Manager, Paris). During their conversation, Louis described how B2B BNPL helps foster trade credit among businesses and shared his views on how it also disrupts the credit lending market

As businesses seek more efficient ways to manage payments and strengthen supply chains, how does B2B BNPL contribute to this need?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: “Buy Now Pay Later” is not a novel thing in B2B. It’s been going on for ages! With more than 50% of B2B transactions done on terms every year, it’s fair to say that trade credit is the norm more than the exception in B2B.  

In most B2B verticals, businesses are making high value purchases for stock, supplies and services, while simultaneously dealing with restricted cash flow. For this reason, trade credit has been the normal method of payment between businesses for hundreds of years. Distilled to the bare bones, it means that a buyer can place their order while the seller agrees that they can pay at a later date.

The real problem with this setup is that it is laden with time-consuming manual work and high potential for risk. Today’s trade credit processes are not fit for the digital age. In particular, they will never be able to cope with the demands of eCommerce, which requires instant decisions and frictionless workflows.

B2B BNPL, at least in the way that Hokodo offers it (i.e. as a form of digital trade credit), relieves merchants of these burdens and makes credit management compatible with online sales. Outsourcing their trade accounts or payment terms to a specialist provider saves credit, finance and collections teams hours every week, while full risk protection and insurance means merchants can do business knowing that they’re going to get paid in full and on time – even if a dodgy buyer slips through the cracks.

With access to a greater and more reliable flow of working capital, as well as teams that have the bandwidth to dig into creative and strategic tasks, merchants have a much better chance of thriving and winning market share.

How is B2B BNPL currently disrupting the business credit lending market?

B2B BNPL is shaking up the business lending market by making it faster, safer and easier for companies – especially SMEs and mid-sized businesses – to access short-term financing. Traditionally, obtaining trade credit or a business loan involves paperwork, waiting around for decisions and inflexible approval criteria. Hokodo flips that model on its head by embedding financing directly into the purchase journey, allowing businesses to defer payments at the point of sale while suppliers get paid upfront. It's essentially a faster, more scalable and far more tech-enabled version of trade credit.

What really sets our B2B BNPL apart is credit underwriting practices. Instead of relying solely on financial statements or credit scores, we use real-time data like transaction history and behavioral signals to assess risk. This makes credit accessible to a much broader range of businesses, including newer or fast-growing companies that might struggle to demonstrate creditworthiness to traditional lenders.

As a result, BNPL is encroaching on territory once dominated by banks, invoice factoring companies and legacy suppliers. It's especially disruptive in sectors such as construction, food & beverage and automotive, as well as in B2B marketplaces, where transactions are frequent and order value is high. While it’s still evolving, the model is expanding quickly beyond e-commerce to areas like freight, logistics and corporate travel. One of the most notable evolutions of the past year has been the expansion of our solution beyond the confines of eCommerce to include offline and in-store transactions. We realised that large B2B accounts purchase through a variety of channels and thus demand a consistent credit limit experience. This prompted us to develop a truly omnichannel trade account solution.

That said, it's not all smooth sailing! As B2B BNPL scales, questions around risk exposure, regulatory oversight and long-term sustainability are surfacing. Regardless, it's clear that BNPL is not just a flash in the pan. It’s become “the new normal” in offering trade credit, creating a thriving space for new players and pushing traditional lenders to rethink how they serve the next generation of B2B.

What sets Hokodo's credit assessment approach apart from other B2B BNPL providers in the market?

Our approach to credit assessment is unique for a number of reasons. Firstly, we provide instant credit decisions on 90% of orders, even for first-time buyers. Most providers have used shortcuts and can’t provide instant, high quality decisions. Many ‘digital’ or ‘modern’ providers cause unnecessary friction by making buyers wait for a decision or by replicating a painful traditional process into a modern interface.

Second is that our credit underwriting algorithm was built in-house, and remains to this day entirely under our control. Was this the difficult option? Yes! So it’s understandable why some other B2B BNPL providers choose to outsource credit underwriting to legacy partners. But knowing we would have full control and visibility over credit decisions made it a no-brainer for us. It leads to better outcomes for our merchants and their customers, notably through higher transparency over potential rejection reasons (and potential ways to work around these).

We use a variety of information sources to make credit decisions, which ultimately means that more businesses get access to better credit lines. When you’re dealing with small, fast growing buyers, it’s not as black and white as simply checking a credit score. Credit scoring and credit decisioning are two different sports!

Finally, a shout out to our dedicated credit team. These folks are crucial to our operations, complementing the automation and tech side of things by conducting manual credit checks and reviews when necessary.

What do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?

Family is really important to me. I have a daughter who is exactly the same age as Hokodo. Sometimes, my wife and I joke that we are raising two babies in parallel. But luckily, both are now out of nappies.

I also love outdoor sports like ski touring, skiing, mountaineering and hiking. To prepare for the mountains, I run around 4-5 times per week, often on my way to the office after dropping my daughter at school. I also try to squeeze in the odd yoga or swimming class to avoid becoming too stiff but that part is not working too well!

What book are you reading, or which is one of your favourite books?

I'd say that 75% of what I read these days is fiction, with the remaining 25% being historical essays.

I just finished reading Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin. It's a novel that was written 20 years ago and imagines a 2028 Russia in which the country is isolated from the rest of the world and tsarism has been restored. It's incredibly premonitory and scarily outrageous. We follow the day of an "oprichnik", a zealot of the regime combined with a mafioso enforcer, as he travels across Russia to punish the enemies of the regime.

It's very difficult to identify a single book as my favourite – but I can certainly offer a shortlist! I’ve read "Gagner la guerre" by Jean-Philippe Jaworski at least twice a year over the past decade. I adore the "Lonesome dove" series by Larry McMurtry, as well as the first books of the "Dune" saga. Every five years or so I revisit “À la recherche du temps perdu” (“In Search of Lost Time”) by Marcel Proust. With each reread I find something new in the pages, which makes it feel like the novel evolves as I age. I have to also mention the Feuillets d'Hypnos by René Char, which is to my mind the most concise and beautiful poetry ever written.

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