Rohini Jain, CFO of business payments platform Bell, has strong views on how AI will transform the role of finance, the future of cross-border payments, and the challenges facing SMEs in the current economic environment.
Global Finance: How is AI changing finance?
Rohini Jain: I’ve been in finance for over two decades. Very early on, the roles revolved around bookkeeping, balancing the balance sheet and making sure the numbers were correct, which evolved into financial support and decision making to support the CEO and business teams.
Finance is now at the center of so much more, not only in setting strategies in a business, but also in executing strategy, driving accountability, and creating long-term roadmaps. It’s really front and center for running a business. Unlike the CEO, the CFO is the only person who looks at each function individually and who needs to know what they are doing. I believe AI is becoming an amazing companion to the CFO that helps us get more done, faster.
GF: Will AI change diverse leadership opportunities?
Jane: For people who are open to learning, it gives us a tremendous number of tools to learn anything we want very quickly and grow into a role. People who are open to taking on big challenges have it a little easier. Traditional educational learning systems are no longer as crucial as they once were.
As a woman, I have juggled my family – I want to be a primary homemaker for my children, my husband and my family – but I also want to have an outstanding career. When I have limited time, I may not be able to go learn in a highly structured environment. AI tools help people like us who have to juggle a range of things to learn quickly and really accelerate the growth path.
GF: Bell serves small and medium-sized businesses. How are these SMEs using AI?
Jane: When we think about the AI use cases we want to create and deploy to SMEs, the key is: What areas remain the biggest areas of friction when it comes to SMEs managing their business?
For example, using AI to deliver a modern, very simple, almost seamless experience, where by having access to a few things, we should be able to integrate vendor history, what kind of invoices you pay, and make it easier for someone who doesn’t like a lot of administrative tasks to get started. The important thing (for SMEs) is that data needs to be integrated across systems, and that’s where Bill really comes into play.
GF: Are there specific areas where you think AI performs better than humans?
Jane: The AI models we develop for our clients will help simplify their workflow a lot. For example, if you’re trying to run your business and you have an invoice that typically comes out the second week of every month, we’ll have our AI agent monitoring all of this and saying, oh, it looks like you didn’t pay this invoice in the second week of this month. Do you want me to pay it? The best financing method for you to pay this bill is so-and-so’s credit card, because you get X number of points.
Or I think you should pay this bill in four days instead of today, because that will increase your cash flow. There are too many variables for you to make this decision. AI tools are in some ways better able to handle all of these variables than humans are.
GF: What AI risks keep you up at night?
Jane: Maybe similar concerns to you. If you think about it, after 2030, where will it all end? It is not clear. How does an economy evolve where people’s productivity is so high that we fully reap the benefits of AI while ensuring that we have the right employment levels within each country, and continue to drive prosperity across the board.
The gap between economies should not get wider – some people have more control over money than others. I’m a little worried about that. We don’t know what we don’t know, and it’s difficult to put proper regulation and oversight around it. So, if we’re thoughtful and try to use AI in the right ways, and the regulation keeps up with that, I think there will probably be more positive outcomes than negative outcomes.
GF: Let’s move on to blockchain technology. How do you see payments changing?
Jane: Blockchain technology has a lot of potential, but I feel it may not have the same adoption curve (as AI). Blockchain today has, in my opinion, more specific use cases. The thing that immediately comes to mind is cross-border transactions. It’s expensive. They are boring. There is a lot of friction. Blockchain technology has the potential – along with stablecoin exchanges – to actually lower (transaction) costs. There are some exotic currencies that are difficult to convince everyone to trade with. Stablecoins can help increase trade with those more exotic currencies.
GF: You mentioned cryptocurrencies and exotics, but what are the benefits of holding a stablecoin against the USD?
Jane: There are pros and cons. There are some advantages to a stablecoin, one of which is that there is not a lot of regulation around it, so it offers flexibility.
GF: How do tariffs and economic conditions affect SMEs?
Jane: There are several key topics currently impacting SMEs. Number one is consumer demand and consumer confidence. How much do people really want to spend? The second thing on everyone’s mind is tariffs. There has been, for a long period of time, uncertainty about tariffs. Now that is behind us.
There is certainty about definitions. People are starting to see it show in their expenses. What is interesting, and not at all unexpected, is that spending on tariffs is not being fully passed on to consumers – especially among big companies, which are very ill-equipped to absorb a large portion of these costs. SMEs, they are forced to absorb parts of that (cost), which takes part of their wallet and what they can spend on other things.
GF: Are there encouraging signs in the economy?
Jane: I hope SMEs get some relief from a cash flow perspective. There are some things that will help them – allowed deductions, which will return more money to SMEs. What they are looking for next from fintech companies is to make processes simple and help them make the right decisions to improve their cash flows.
GF: How do you compete with the larger banks entering your space?
Jane: All clients – and SMEs in particular – are looking for highly integrated solutions. They don’t want to have 10 different companies offering them services A, B, and C. Your data becomes truly fragmented; You can’t harness the full power of all the data flowing through all these different systems. You must maintain different contracts. You’re paying a whole bunch of people. You’re integrating your technology into multiple platforms, and that’s just a huge overhead. This was a big strategy for Bell, and it was our first integrated solution, which we call 1.0, with financial institutions.
We have gained a lot of experience in what the clients of these financial institutions really need. The product has been sharpened. Banks are very good at making payments. They may not be good at providing software services that have a smooth, simple and easy user interface and add a lot of value to businesses. We have seen a lot of success through our built-in financial channels.
GF: Where do you see areas of growth?
Jane: One of the areas we’re focusing on is the Embed 2.0 strategy, where we’re applying all the lessons learned from the first embedded version and (deciding) that we’re going to partner with a much broader group. We recently announced our partnership with Paychex. We want to meet our customers where they are. If Paychex customers are already using this system, they will now be able to integrate invoice services seamlessly. We hope to announce another Fortune 500 partnership very soon, which will give us access to a lot of upper small businesses and lower middle market clients.
GF: Bill has been active in mergers and acquisitions. How do you think about opportunities?
Jane: I was reading a study a few weeks ago that said 50% of mergers and acquisitions are successful at best. The way to think about it is: Do you build, buy, or partner? Leaders used to always think about building or buying. A partner becomes an important third way of looking at where you want to go. I always think mergers and acquisitions as a talent acquisition tool are excellent, but you have to be very clear about why you’re doing it. How is it communicated and operationalized in your organization through cultural fit as well as skill set? Big mergers and acquisitions are fraught with a lot of risk, and there has to be a very compelling case for considering this.
