Late payments have become one of the most persistent cash flow problems facing small businesses, despite repeated attempts to tighten payment rules and put more pressure on larger companies.
For Tom Lamb, head of UK at Aria, the answer lies partly in better infrastructure. Rather than waiting for payment terms to shorten by legislation alone, he argues that B2B payment tools need to sit directly inside the platforms where transactions already happen, allowing buyers to manage terms while suppliers get paid faster.
In this week’s Five Minutes With…, Fintechly speaks to Lamb about building Aria’s UK business, the changing perception of invoice finance, why embedded finance is becoming harder for platforms to ignore, and how transaction data can support faster, more accurate credit decisions.
Can you tell us about yourself and what brought you to this point in your career?
I’m about to celebrate my three-year anniversary at Aria, so this feels as good a time as any to reflect on what brought me to this point.
B2B payments and embedded finance have been the through line of my career. I got my break in asset-based lending at RSM UK, working on invoice finance and working capital solutions, before moving to Singapore with FinTech Consortium, where I worked on a $100 fintech VC fund.
Perhaps the most relevant chapter of my career prior to Aria was my time at Kriya, which was formerly known as MarketFinance. I was in charge of founding its embedded finance division from scratch, taking it from zero to a live product with a 10-person team.
That experience set me up nicely for my role at Aria, where I joined in April 2023 as its first UK employee. At the time, there was no English-language website, no GBP credit product, and no commercial presence. I helped scale our operations from zero to over 40% of global revenue in under two years, making the UK our fastest-growing market. Since then, Aria ranked #31 in FT1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies 2025.
What problem or opportunity are you most focused on right now?
The late payments problem, which costs the UK economy £11 billion a year and shuts down 38 businesses a day. Big businesses delay paying their suppliers for as long as possible to prop up their own cash flow. Studies show that the larger a company is, the less likely it is to pay on time. Despite new government legislation designed to clamp down on the problem, it is unlikely to go away entirely, considering the power dynamics at play.
And the late payments problem isn’t the preserve of Britain alone. The EU Payment Observatory Annual Report 2025 revealed that companies spend an average of 9.85 hours per week chasing late payments. Estimates suggest that, without late payments, SMEs could unlock over €100 billion in additional cash flow each year.
What do you think deserves more attention than it is getting in your part of the industry?
The infrastructure problem. The conversation around late payments mostly focuses on legislation, including shortening payment windows and granting the Small Business Commissioner the power to levy fines. But even if every company followed the rules, a 60-day payment cap would still leave small businesses out of pocket for almost two months.
The real opportunity for these businesses, though less glossy, lies in the plumbing. By building payment infrastructure directly into the platforms where B2B transactions occur, you eliminate all friction. Buyers can pay later, and suppliers get paid instantly. Legislation can help set limits, but infrastructure can alleviate the problem directly.
What do you think people still misunderstand about your part of the industry?
Invoice financing has a bad reputation. Many business owners associate it with financial distress, turning to it as a last resort after the bank rejects a loan. But the stigma is fading as embedded finance becomes a recognised tool not just for survival, but also for boosting business growth by shoring up cash flow so they can hire, invest, and take on bigger clients without waiting to get paid.
What do you expect to rise up the agenda over the next year?
Three things.
First, the efficacy of the government’s new late payment reform will be tested, as we wait to see whether the SBC will use its new power to crack down on repeat offenders. Everyone knows rules without enforcement don’t change behaviour.
Second, the window of embedded finance being a differentiator is closing. BCG predicts that SaaS providers integrating embedded finance into their offerings will see faster growth. That coincides with last year’s study by Adyen and BCG, which estimates a total addressable market of about US$185bn. Platforms that don’t offer their users a way to manage payment terms are going to lose ground to those that do. It’s becoming table stakes.
Third, the thing I’m watching closely is market consolidation. There are a lot of providers, and not all will survive the current punishing funding environment. Those that rise above the froth are those with real credit rigour and proven unit economics beyond slick APIs.
Bonus question: What’s the one question about your company we should have asked, and what’s your answer?
“Why does this work in B2B when it’s been so hard in consumer lending?”
Because the data is better. Sitting inside a platform like an ERP or a marketplace means we can read an entire history of transaction data. That data forms the foundation for better underwriting, enabling us to make faster credit decisions with higher approval rates by avoiding assumptions. Consumer lenders often rely on declared income, credit scores, and bank statements, whereas in B2B, the transactional evidence is demonstrably richer.
