As the monthlong B2B Payments: Outlook 2030 event has revealed, the future of B2B payments is fast, global and all about innovation.
Still, uncertainty remains an invisible expense on nearly every company’s ledger. Finance teams are scrambling to maintain control while juggling cash flow concerns, cost volatility and a minefield of risk.
Middle-market firms often find themselves caught in the Goldilocks paradox. These businesses, with $50 million to $1 billion in revenues, are too big for the financial products offered to smaller businesses, yet too small for the working capital solutions typically designed for multibillion-dollar enterprises. What they need are solutions that are just right for their size.
Fortunately for them, the traditional way of doing business is getting an upgrade, as evidenced by three major themes PYMNTS saw this week: the digital software solutions optimizing B2B workflows, the growth of cross-border commerce, and the embrace of innovations like blockchain for B2B and embedded finance.
Read also: Halfway Through: 3 Things We’ve Learned From PYMNTS B2B Month
Businesses are trading manual processes for digital tools.
Spendesk launched a procure-to-pay solution designed alongside the company’s existing spend management platform Tuesday (Oct. 22). The resulting fully integrated procurement and spend management tool is designed for European small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) of up to 1,000 employees.
Canadian FinTech Nuvei also on Tuesday announced a partnership with open Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) eCommerce platform BigCommerce to enable customizable payment solutions that were previously only available to large enterprise companies.
Tuesday was also a big day for business software, as Marqeta joined the fray and added two new products to its card program management tools. The new UX Toolkit helps customers create modern payment experiences from scratch, while the new Portfolio Migration service makes it easier for companies to upgrade their existing card programs onto the Marqeta platform.
Elsewhere, a growing number of business clients and network participants are using APIs from Bank of America to enable payment transactions and other capabilities. Over the last 12 months, the bank has seen the number of clients using APIs for real-time treasury needs increase by 51% and the number of network participants like treasury management systems (TMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers grow to 55.
APIs are one of the most powerful tools reshaping treasury operations, and treasury teams are reaping the benefits of the collaborations they enable, PYMNTS reported Monday (Oct. 21). They have become indispensable in the corporate finance ecosystem by allowing integration and communication between various financial systems, enabling automation and providing real-time data access.
PYMNTS Intelligence’s “2024-2025 Growth Corporates Working Capital Index,” commissioned by Visa, identified the ways businesses are adopting digital solutions to optimize cash flow and drive growth in a competitive global market.
Digital payments bring a wealth of data that chief financial officers and treasurers can unlock to drive competitive differentiation and growth.
“We do see a real evolution into more sophisticated tools and ways to manage your money,” Albert Acevedo, senior vice president of treasury services at Priority, told PYMNTS in an interview posted Wednesday (Oct. 23). “We’re seeing the merging of payment processes with source data to create efficiencies.”
With embedded finance becoming a key player, businesses are getting smarter about integrating financial services directly into their operations.
“Research shows that the volume of embedded B2B payments today is around $2.5 trillion, and we expect that to grow upwards of $6.5 [trillion] to $7 trillion within the next two to three years,” Daniel Artin, head of FinTech partnerships at Boost Payment Solutions, told PYMNTS in an interview posted Thursday (Oct. 24), emphasizing how quickly the market is expanding.
“The shift that is happening is going to be a seismic wave,” he added.
That’s why, for the Outlook 2030 B2B event, PYMNTS sat down with Ran Goldi, senior vice president of payments and network at Fireblocks, and Nikola Plecas, head of commercialization, Visa Crypto, to dissect the benefits and myths surrounding blockchain-based payments, how to think about real-world applications and how to unlock new revenue streams using blockchain — particularly as it relates to the concept of the “stablecoin sandwich,” a method of using stablecoins to transfer value between currencies.
The process serves as a practical illustration of blockchain’s efficiency in cross-border payments and involves converting a currency, such as Mexican pesos, into a dollar-pegged stablecoin (e.g., USDC), Goldi said. This digital currency is then transferred instantly to the receiving country, where it is converted back to local fiat currency, such as British pounds.
In Latin America, for example, importers use stablecoins to pay Asian suppliers. Payments that used to take days now settle in minutes, reducing storage costs and customs delays. This speed gives payment providers an edge in markets where efficiency is critical.
Global commerce is booming, and businesses of all sizes are looking to cash in. However, with international trade comes the challenge of navigating different currencies, regulations and payment methods. That’s where innovations in cross-border solutions come in, bridging the gap and turning every business into a global powerhouse.
When it comes to overall opportunity, the United States market is home to over 13,100 FinTechs, with some estimates putting the industry’s total value by 2030 at $1.5 trillion. For FinTechs eyeing expansion, the U.S. offers a $10.6 trillion card payments market — nearly five times the size of the European Union’s — alongside a $2 trillion payment processing industry. Many of the EU’s top FinTechs have already planted their flags stateside.
However, as Jim McCarthy, CEO of global payments processor Thredd, pointed out during an interview posted Tuesday about entering the U.S. market, “Monetizing and scaling in the U.S. is a more complex endeavor than many realize, especially in recent years.”
The intricate nature of cross-border payments introduces various risks, especially when third parties are involved.
Elsewhere, Mastercard introduced a new solution Monday that will enable banks to facilitate commercial cross-border payments that are near real time, predictable and transparent. The new Mastercard Move Commercial Payments is designed to simplify operations, optimize liquidity, reduce counterparty risk and provide end-to-end visibility for banks and their customers.
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