Instant healthcare: is the industry financially ready for the ‘Now Economy’?
Global healthcare players need to redesign their operations to keep up with rising demands for faster, better services.
The age of instant expectations
The ‘Now Economy’ is transforming how companies deliver value to consumers. Today’s consumers have grown accustomed to newfound convenience offered by services ranging from next-day-delivery, instant ride booking, on-demand entertainment, to seamless digital banking.
Following this consumer trend, patients have seen a wave of healthcare industry innovation with teleconsultations, online pharmacies, real-time diagnostics, home-based testing kits, and digital insurance claim processes. However, as expectations toward immediate, transparent, and seamless services continue to grow, the healthcare sector faces mounting pressure to deliver faster, better, smarter, and more accessible care.
The complexity behind the curtain
The healthcare ecosystem was not built for the “instant”. It remains one of the most complex global industries, with intricate webs of pharmaceutical R&D centres, contract manufacturers, regulators, and logistics providers, each governed by their own set of regulatory standards, testing requirements, and government bodies. The result? Delays, inefficiencies and slow responses to cross-border navigation, supply chain complications, or foreign exchange complexities.
Shifting towards “instant” care
To meet changing expectations of the ‘Now Economy’, healthcare stakeholders must rethink core fundamentals – especially in supply chain design and financial infrastructure. Can healthcare companies (drug manufacturers, medical equipment manufacturers, medical institutions, research facilities, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies) rewire their models to serve this ‘now’ mindset without compromising on safety, efficacy, and compliance?
In healthcare, being “instant” isn’t just about speed, it’s about intelligence. It means embedding automation, digital tracking, and AI-driven workflows throughout the supply chain and financial operations. This requires building a financial infrastructure that ensures working capital cycles can keep pace with accelerated demands of patients.
Banking for instant healthcare: Looking through the varied aspects of cash flows
As the industry continues to shift towards real-time care, virtual consultations, direct-to-consumer sales, and instant payments, traditional financial structures are being tested.
Across the global healthcare ecosystem, companies within each sub-sector (drug manufacturers, medical equipment manufacturers, medical institutions, research facilities, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies) have distinct operating models that require a bespoke and tailored banking approach.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to banking for instant healthcare – understanding each company’s unique complexities is critical to designing the correct banking solution.
In today’s ‘Now Economy’, while individual needs may vary across the healthcare ecosystem, effective treasury strategies should ultimately be anchored around three core pillars: agility, visibility, and resilience.
Agility
- Harness technology to take advantage of real-time payment instruments.
- Utilise bank partners well-versed in digital marketplaces and emerging global payments and collections instruments (such as Standard Chartered and its Straight2Bank Pay solution; access 22 instant payment infrastructures globally).
- Operational efficiency/improved reconciliation using payment factories, liquidity structures, and On Behalf of (OBO)/virtual account structures.
Visibility and automated processing
- Enhanced reporting through end-to-end integration with TMS/ERP platforms (Straight2Bank, SAP Multibank Connectivity).
- Increase focus on more precise cash flow forecasting (H2H/API: Extensive API catalogue, 150 banking APIs).
- Enable Straight-Through-Processing (STP) and enhance liquidity structures (global liquidity reporting via customisable reports (S2BL). Allows for customisable workflows, robust controls, and consistent experience across 60+ markets.
Resilience
- Unlocking capital through streamlined global pooling structures/bank account rationalisation (Advisory/MCNP and global cash concentration).
- Looking for new sources of capital as medications continue to come off-patent.
- Comprehensive approach to mitigate FX volatility/counterparty risk (such as using SC PrismFX).
- Advanced data security (AI-based outlier detection, predictive analytics).
Supporting the future of healthcare
The healthcare industry is entering an era where being late is not an option. To serve the ‘Now Economy’, global healthcare players must redesign their operations. Banks have a pivotal role to play – not only in financing healthcare transformation – but in architecting the infrastructure that makes instant, on-demand healthcare a reality.
Corporate banking solutions should be specialised, strategic, and deeply attuned to the needs of specialised industries. Combining deep sector insights, an extensive cross-border network, Standard Chartered is equipped to empower businesses across diverse sectors to navigate change, seize opportunity, and drive growth.
Was this article helpful?
We’d love to hear your thoughts. By voting below you’ll be taken to a quick anonymous survey to give us your opinion.
Our latest insights
RMB internationalisation is anchoring growth across the Chin…
The internationalisation of the renminbi is helping create new trade, investment and finance opportunities.Brief…