This Week in B2B: Central Bank Best Practices, AI Agents, FinTech Innovation

The future of corporate finance is shifting from reactive to predictive, and that’s great news for B2B innovation.

This rapid and ongoing shift toward advancements in digitization, real-time payments and next-generation tools such as artificial intelligence (AI)-powered forecasting is redefining how businesses manage core operational elements like liquidity and working capital. For chief financial officers (CFOs) and treasurers, the question is no longer if they should embrace innovation but how quickly they can implement solutions that enhance financial resilience.

As uncertainty persists, tomorrow’s corporate giants won’t just be the ones with the biggest balance sheets — they’ll be the ones with the smartest financial infrastructure and operational toolkit.

CFOs Say Back Office Is Primed for AI and Automation

CFOs are increasingly recognizing AI and automation as key drivers of efficiency in finance operations. With manual processes slowing down decision-making and compliance efforts, AI-powered tools are transforming functions like accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR) and treasury management.

In an era where data drives every aspect of business, CFOs must harness advanced analytics, automation and AI to unlock valuable insights and streamline processes, Andrew Casey, recently appointed CFO at Amplitude, told PYMNTS during a discussion for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a CFO.”

“Operational CFOs can bring to bear the necessary focus around driving scale and building processes,” Casey said.

That’s echoed by findings in the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Window of Opportunity: Gaining AR Transparency Through Automation,” which revealed that by adopting digital and automated processes, companies can close visibility gaps and build stronger relationships with suppliers and customers. More than three-quarters of surveyed CFOs (77%) said that AR automation improves invoice tracking, for example.

“The majority of manufacturers are considering AI in the near future. The momentum is undeniable,” Geoff Brannon, CFO at Rootstock Software, told PYMNTS during another episode of “A Day in the Life of a CFO.”

According to Brannon, AI agents are being embedded within ERP products to automate administrative tasks such as inventory procurement and payments.

“The technology is advancing quickly,” he said. “It’s exciting to see how it’s transforming industries traditionally tied to legacy systems.”

The marketplace is responding to the notion of AI agents already. On Tuesday (Jan. 28), WiseLayer announced it had raised $7.2 million to continue developing its own task-specific AI agents designed for finance and accounting teams. WiseLayer’s “digital workforce” includes six agents specializing in accruals and revenue recognition; discrepancies and financial anomalies; bank reconciliations; fixed asset depreciation and amortization; lease accounting; and prepaid expenses.

The Maturation of the FinTech Ecosystem

The FinTech ecosystem has evolved from a disruptive force to a strategic enabler for businesses, particularly in the B2B space. As FinTechs develop more sophisticated solutions, they are addressing persistent inefficiencies in payments, lending and expense management.

The marketplace is responding to the variety of unmet B2B needs. Per a Wednesday (Jan. 29) announcement, open-source financial infrastructure provider Formance raised $21 million in a Series A funding round to grow its Ledger and other solutions that help developers build financial flows and products.

Also on Wednesday, Gallabox said it raised $3.5 million in a seed round to strengthen the capabilities and expand the geographic footprint of its platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to use AI agents to automate their communications.

On Thursday (Jan. 30), French FinTech Swan announced a raise of $43 million to expand its embedded banking offering. “This funding isn’t just about growth, it’s a reflection of a larger shift happening in the industry,” Swan said in a release.

TravelPerk said Tuesday that it took a step toward its goal of building an integrated travel and expense management platform by acquiring Yokoy. The move will add Yokoy’s spend management platform to TravelPerk’s business travel platform. TravelPerk also announced that it raised $200 million in a Series E funding round that nearly doubled the company’s valuation to $2.7 billion. In June, the company expanded into the U.S. by acquiring Chicago-based business travel platform AmTrav.

Elsewhere in travel news, Travel Ledger now enables travel businesses in the United Kingdom and Europe to use Revolut’s banking services to automatically settle B2B payments with partners directly through the Travel Ledger platform. The capability comes from a new integration of Travel Ledger’s industry specific B2B billing and settlement capabilities with Revolut Business accounts, Travel Ledger said Wednesday.

What Finance Departments Can Glean From Central Banks

Finance departments in corporations face many of the same challenges as central banks — balancing liquidity, managing risk, ensuring financial stability and optimizing capital allocation. While corporate finance operates on a different scale and with different objectives than a central bank, the frameworks and methodologies employed by central banks can provide valuable insights for CFOs and treasurers.

Central banks, including the European Central Bank (ECB), are experimenting with technologies like tokenization and blockchain in order to collapse the friction-filled sequential steps of traditional correspondent banking into a single cross-border payment update whose potential benefits include faster settlements, lower costs and enhanced compliance. This maturation of the cross-border landscape could ultimately redefine how growth-focused treasurers and CFOs manage global transactions, liquidity and risk.

For corporate treasurers and finance teams operating in today’s uncertain environment, many of whom are facing mounting pressures to manage financial risk, maintain liquidity and optimize cash flow, PYMNTS unpacked how there are few better objective benchmarks than the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 31000 and Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) enterprise risk management (ERM) frameworks.

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