TEG SmartPay processes £478m in UK freight payments, including £418m in one year

TEG’s SmartPay platform has processed £478m in payments to UK haulage businesses since launch, with £418m of that total handled during the past 12 months as freight operators increasingly turn to embedded finance to shorten payment cycles.

The figures, announced on 13 October, demonstrate accelerating use of a payment and settlement service designed to give smaller carriers access to cash after completing transport assignments rather than waiting for conventional customer payment terms.

UK road haulage businesses commonly face payment periods of 30 to 90 days, according to TEG, creating a funding gap between paying drivers, fuel suppliers and operating expenses and receiving payment for completed deliveries.

SmartPay allows participating carriers to request early payment against approved invoices through the same platform used to obtain transport bookings.

TEG says payments reach carriers’ bank accounts in under four minutes on average once released, with verification, remittance and reconciliation integrated into the settlement process.

The company also offers non-recourse early-payment arrangements for eligible transactions, subject to conditions including completion of the delivery and provision of supporting evidence.

This distinguishes the service from conventional invoice discounting, where a lender typically establishes a financing facility against a business’s wider receivables ledger and advances funds subject to eligibility and credit criteria.

SmartPay instead embeds the funding request within an existing transport workflow, potentially making access easier for small operators that would struggle to justify a traditional invoice-finance facility.

TEG works with verification partner Trustd to check carrier identities and payment information. The integration is intended to address fraud risks associated with faster settlement, including incorrect bank details and impersonation.

The company says its wider network encompasses more than 10,000 logistics businesses, although it has not disclosed how many individual carriers have received SmartPay financing.

Nor has it published the financing provider’s identity, individual transaction fees or the outstanding amount of early-payment funding.

Importantly, the £478m represents cumulative payments processed through the platform, not a committed credit facility or a current financing balance.

Nevertheless, the concentration of activity during the past year is commercially significant. Approximately 87% of the platform’s reported cumulative payment volume was processed over those 12 months.

The development illustrates how specialist working-capital finance is moving closer to the underlying commercial transaction, combining invoice approval, counterparty verification and settlement before businesses need to approach a separate lender.