Dear SAP Community,
We are more than excited to share more about the recent co-innovation, with BitPay, in the crypto payments space and the exciting use cases that have been validated and enabled on this.
Why now?
Today, there are already over ~18,000 businesses worldwide accepting crypto, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stable coins as a payment method. The estimated value of consumer purchases with cryptocurrency is $55B within 2022 and a mastercard study suggests that 40% of consumers aim to use digital assets for purchasing goods and services in 2022. As crypto becomes more mature, customers will increasingly expect SAP to enable them to interact with crypto and Decentralized Finance (DeFi), enabling payments, financial services, and crypto accounting.
What is this about?
The co-innovation explores how to simplify and accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the enterprise space by providing simple and non-disruptive ways for companies to implement crypto payment services jointly together with partners. Following initial use cases can be implemented by customers, leveraging the SAP digital payments add-on as a central hub for payment orchestration. Please find corresponding demo recordings here.
SAP Commerce Cloud
SAP Commerce Cloud already provides integration to different Payment Service Providers for various payment options. The SAP digital payments add-on showcases that it can handle crypto payment service providers (CPSP) too and subsequently reconcile the transaction in SAP S/4HANA in combination with SAP Commerce Cloud.
The benefits of enabling crypto as payment options are that it could drive new sales for merchants and tap into a new generation of cryptocurrency holders, as 93% of consumers holding crypto consider making purchases with their crypto holdings in the future.
The high-level architecture of the proposed solution below showcases a crypto payment process with SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP digital payments add-on, and CPSP for example BitPay. At check-out, the customer can choose which wallet and cryptocurrency to pay with and the payment interface of the CPSP gets displayed. SAP digital payments add-on receives the transaction information from SAP Commerce Cloud and validates the payment with the CPSP. This results in a payment advice that can be used for the reconciliation in SAP S/4HANA Cloud together with the billing document and bank statement of the payment from the CPSP.
SAP Ariba
The implemented demo during the co-innovation worked on a simple approach to accept cryptocurrency as a payment mechanism in SAP Ariba Guided Buying with the objective that buyers can facilitate crypto payments with their fiat while making cryptocurrencies pay-outs to suppliers who want to get paid in crypto.
After a buyer agrees to use a crypto payment service provider (CPSP), like BitPay, to route payment to a supplier in a cryptocurrency of choice, the supplier can choose this CPSP as a payment method. This implementation needs to be checked individually per customer, due to local regulations. This enables the supplier to receive crypto payment in his preferred wallet and cryptocurrency, including stable coins like USDC, and the buyer to pay in his preferred fiat currency.
This provides instant value to suppliers who might already offer decentralized finance services or work with metaverse and digital twins solutions. Additionally, using stable coins in the payment process of procurement can bring advantages to countries where currency inflation might be high and opens the market for suppliers where the financial infrastructure might be not well developed.
SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll
The implemented use case during the co-innovation gave the employees the choice of receiving a certain percentage of their bonus in a cryptocurrency of choice. Regular salary payments were out of scope, as regulations differ from country to country and need to be checked for each customer individually. Global organizations can benefit from the solutions as crypto payments can be processed faster and easier across the globe, even in very remote locations.
All the employee needs is a cryptocurrency wallet, for example, MetaMask. The use case offers additional benefits for the company, in attracting and retaining global digital talent, who want to receive a portion of their salary in cryptocurrencies. Getting paid in crypto gives the employees the additional flexibility to hold funds in digital assets while not needing to take the extra step to exchange their fiat salary using a manual step into a cryptocurrency.
"More than a third of millennials and half of Generation Z would be happy to receive 50% of their salary in Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies, reveals a new survey," states an article from Nasdaq.
Why is this approach attractive?
Companies can pay or accept cryptocurrencies without having to buy, own or take custody of cryptocurrencies because crypto payment service providers (CPSP) like BitPay, exchange cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies, shielding them from any price volatility risk of the cryptocurrency. In addition, this approach mitigates the constantly evolving regulations as companies have the option to only handle fiat currencies while gaining their first experiences with cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the impact on subsequent processes in accounting, treasury and tax management is low. This approach can be evolved further in the future by adding e.g., digital corporate wallets to the scenario enabling the ability to receive and pay with cryptocurrencies from the digital wallet. Allowing companies to meet the cryptocurrency adoption pace required by their business.
Want more?
The previously mentioned use cases are only the tip of the iceberg, deriving direct business value for companies and employees with crypto payments. More use cases could potentially be implemented and tested:
I’m interested! To whom can I reach out?
Write us a short email with the areas of your interest or questions in order to work with SAP on future use cases and implementations of crypto payments. SAP Innovation Center Network: icn@sap.com
In addition, we would love to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment and imagine what is next with us. We are very excited about the future of cryptocurrencies!
We are more than excited to share more about the recent co-innovation, with BitPay, in the crypto payments space and the exciting use cases that have been validated and enabled on this.
Why now?
Today, there are already over ~18,000 businesses worldwide accepting crypto, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stable coins as a payment method. The estimated value of consumer purchases with cryptocurrency is $55B within 2022 and a mastercard study suggests that 40% of consumers aim to use digital assets for purchasing goods and services in 2022. As crypto becomes more mature, customers will increasingly expect SAP to enable them to interact with crypto and Decentralized Finance (DeFi), enabling payments, financial services, and crypto accounting.
What is this about?
The co-innovation explores how to simplify and accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the enterprise space by providing simple and non-disruptive ways for companies to implement crypto payment services jointly together with partners. Following initial use cases can be implemented by customers, leveraging the SAP digital payments add-on as a central hub for payment orchestration. Please find corresponding demo recordings here.
SAP Commerce Cloud
SAP Commerce Cloud already provides integration to different Payment Service Providers for various payment options. The SAP digital payments add-on showcases that it can handle crypto payment service providers (CPSP) too and subsequently reconcile the transaction in SAP S/4HANA in combination with SAP Commerce Cloud.
The benefits of enabling crypto as payment options are that it could drive new sales for merchants and tap into a new generation of cryptocurrency holders, as 93% of consumers holding crypto consider making purchases with their crypto holdings in the future.
The high-level architecture of the proposed solution below showcases a crypto payment process with SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, SAP digital payments add-on, and CPSP for example BitPay. At check-out, the customer can choose which wallet and cryptocurrency to pay with and the payment interface of the CPSP gets displayed. SAP digital payments add-on receives the transaction information from SAP Commerce Cloud and validates the payment with the CPSP. This results in a payment advice that can be used for the reconciliation in SAP S/4HANA Cloud together with the billing document and bank statement of the payment from the CPSP.
Figure 1: Cryptocurrency Payment Process with SAP digital payments add-on and crypto payment service provider
SAP Ariba
The implemented demo during the co-innovation worked on a simple approach to accept cryptocurrency as a payment mechanism in SAP Ariba Guided Buying with the objective that buyers can facilitate crypto payments with their fiat while making cryptocurrencies pay-outs to suppliers who want to get paid in crypto.
After a buyer agrees to use a crypto payment service provider (CPSP), like BitPay, to route payment to a supplier in a cryptocurrency of choice, the supplier can choose this CPSP as a payment method. This implementation needs to be checked individually per customer, due to local regulations. This enables the supplier to receive crypto payment in his preferred wallet and cryptocurrency, including stable coins like USDC, and the buyer to pay in his preferred fiat currency.
This provides instant value to suppliers who might already offer decentralized finance services or work with metaverse and digital twins solutions. Additionally, using stable coins in the payment process of procurement can bring advantages to countries where currency inflation might be high and opens the market for suppliers where the financial infrastructure might be not well developed.
Figure 2: End-to-end Procurement Process Flow with Cryptocurrency
SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll
The implemented use case during the co-innovation gave the employees the choice of receiving a certain percentage of their bonus in a cryptocurrency of choice. Regular salary payments were out of scope, as regulations differ from country to country and need to be checked for each customer individually. Global organizations can benefit from the solutions as crypto payments can be processed faster and easier across the globe, even in very remote locations.
All the employee needs is a cryptocurrency wallet, for example, MetaMask. The use case offers additional benefits for the company, in attracting and retaining global digital talent, who want to receive a portion of their salary in cryptocurrencies. Getting paid in crypto gives the employees the additional flexibility to hold funds in digital assets while not needing to take the extra step to exchange their fiat salary using a manual step into a cryptocurrency.
"More than a third of millennials and half of Generation Z would be happy to receive 50% of their salary in Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies, reveals a new survey," states an article from Nasdaq.
Figure 3: Salary or Bonus Payments in Crypto with SAP SuccessFactors and Digital Payments Add-on
Why is this approach attractive?
Companies can pay or accept cryptocurrencies without having to buy, own or take custody of cryptocurrencies because crypto payment service providers (CPSP) like BitPay, exchange cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies, shielding them from any price volatility risk of the cryptocurrency. In addition, this approach mitigates the constantly evolving regulations as companies have the option to only handle fiat currencies while gaining their first experiences with cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the impact on subsequent processes in accounting, treasury and tax management is low. This approach can be evolved further in the future by adding e.g., digital corporate wallets to the scenario enabling the ability to receive and pay with cryptocurrencies from the digital wallet. Allowing companies to meet the cryptocurrency adoption pace required by their business.
Want more?
The previously mentioned use cases are only the tip of the iceberg, deriving direct business value for companies and employees with crypto payments. More use cases could potentially be implemented and tested:
- SAP Fieldglass: Pay external and contingent workforce in cryptocurrencies of their choice to attract and retain the right talent.
- SAP Event Ticketing: Accept cryptocurrencies for tickets and events and provide fans with a new payment option of their choice.
- SAP Commerce Cloud: Minting and paying for your NFTs with cryptocurrencies in the metaverse
- And many more! Looking forward to your ideas.
I’m interested! To whom can I reach out?
Write us a short email with the areas of your interest or questions in order to work with SAP on future use cases and implementations of crypto payments. SAP Innovation Center Network: icn@sap.com
In addition, we would love to hear your thoughts, questions, and feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment and imagine what is next with us. We are very excited about the future of cryptocurrencies!
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