10 B2B Payment Trends Driving Enterprise Success in 2025 and Beyond
MHC Team 
August 29th, 2025
The ways in which the world communicates and does business online are changing rapidly in 2025, as new technologies transform our methods in ways that wouldn’t have seemed possible not long ago. B2B payments trends have entered a new era of digital transformation. A survey of employers in the manufacturing industry, for example, finds that a striking 96% expect check-based payments to be phased out soon in favor of real-time electronic payment methods.
As you might expect, many of the latest payments industry trends in technology involve automation and artificial intelligence (AI), which are driving rapid evolutions in speed and efficiency in the B2B payments sphere. Those same tools are also creating new challenges for payment professionals, with scams and fraud attempts growing more sophisticated every day. For instance, domestic wire fraud has jumped by nearly 35% in the past several years and shows no sign of slowing down.
In this article, we’ll explore the 10 key payment industry trends of 2025, and what those trends mean for your business heading into the future.
Table of Contents
What’s Coming in 2025 and Beyond and How AP Leaders Can Be Prepared
Top B2B Payment Trends Shaping 2025 and Beyond
1. Digital Payments Are Replacing Checks
2. Payment Process Automation is a Necessity
3. Businesses Can Earn Discounts and Rebates
4. Prioritizing B2B Payment Security
5. B2B Payment Option Flexibility and Instant Payments
6. Cross-Border Payments Drive Growth
7. Embedded Payments Play a Bigger Part
8. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Solutions for B2B Payments
9. Mobile Access to Make Payments
10. Avoiding Duplicate Payments and Errors
Stay On Top of Payment Industry Trends in 2025 with AP Automation
What’s Coming in 2025 and Beyond and How AP Leaders Can Be Prepared
Automation remains the name of the game when it comes to US corporate payments, and now artificial intelligence has also become a crucial part of the conversation.
Those technologies, along with rapid changes in the business landscape, are the driving forces behind most of the major B2B digital payments trends we’ve seen so far in 2025.
Looking ahead to 2026, these are also the latest trends in payments industry operations that accounts payable teams will need to watch most closely.
How AP Leaders Can Get Prepared
- Educate your AP team on potential ways to apply artificial intelligence. AI tools can simplify many time-consuming and repetitive accounts payable tasks. Processes like data entry, invoice routing, and vendor dispute resolution will increasingly be handled using AI.
- Explore payment methods outside of manual checks or ACH payments. Consider the use of employee payment cards or virtual credit cards for your AP team.
- Negotiate now with your vendors for improved early pay discounts or rebates.
- Create benchmarks and analyze incoming data to ensure that you catch potential issues before they become a problem.
- Ensure your payment policies are standardized, centralized, and that your entire organization is committed to following them.
- Train staff on fraud detection and implement organization-wide policies to avoid fraud altogether.
- Implement AP automation solutions to ease the flow of receipt to invoice, allowing your team increased flexibility and productivity. For companies already using an AP automation solution, tighten up your workflows and approval processes so they can accommodate the unforeseen.
The knowledge of a trend is only worthwhile if you use that knowledge to inform further action. 2024 saw the introduction of a number of tools and practices that have already become standardized in 2025, and will continue to expand in 2026. Making sure your AP team is ready to put them to use will be your key to success in the near future.
Top B2B Payment Trends Shaping 2025 and Beyond
As with most industries in 2025, the world of B2B payment trends is quickly reshaping itself to reflect changes in technology and business. The past couple of years have seen a rapid shift to digital payments and remote processes, once unthinkable in a world that still often relied solely on ACH and check payments.
Within the current B2B landscape, companies that are still depending on traditional banking methods will face many obstacles, including payment delays, limited payment visibility, high labor-based processing costs, fraud risk, and a lack of information transparency. Any one of these issues can have a lasting negative impact on your organization, customers, and suppliers.
In this article, we will share the emerging trends shaping the B2B payment industry, and how you can prepare your business for financial success with an eye to the future.
1. Digital Payments Are Replacing Checks
In a 2022 conversation about emerging payment trends, Recharged Education’s Lynn Larson, shared some of her 20 years of business-to-business payments experience. A lot has changed in B2B over the past three years, but Larson’s thoughts on where US corporate payment methods are headed as we move towards a more digital landscape remain on-point. While checks seem outdated in our personal lives, the number of checks corporations still use to pay suppliers is astounding.
According to Larson, US organizations are getting wise and have started to move away from check payments and into electronic methods that reduce time, labor, and required resources. Earlier this year, Fiscal Service Chief Disbursing Officer Linda Chero announced that the US federal government would largely stop issuing paper checks, explaining, “With paper checks over 16 times more likely to get lost, stolen, altered, or delayed, we encourage those still receiving paper checks to make the switch today. Electronic payments such as direct deposit are safer than checks, allow quicker access to funds, and have less risk of fraud.”
That thinking extends to the business world, where 73% of consumers say they prefer digital or mobile payment. Trends away from paper checks are driven not only by security and safety concerns, but also environmental considerations. Beyond physical paper, outdated check payments also involve printers, scanners, copiers, and other equipment that consumes energy and requires maintenance. Like most modern businesses, the payment processing industry trends toward sustainability.
“I 2. Payment Process Automation is a Necessity
With the declining use of checks, flexibility increasing, and a focus on rapid transactions, payment process automation has become something close to a requirement. Payment processing trends are seeing businesses across all industries using software to combine, streamline, and automate numerous manual processes to save time, reduce errors, and help eliminate approval bottlenecks.
Even so, there are still plenty of organizations lagging behind. In his webinar “Stay Ahead in 2025: Master AP’s Biggest Challenges Before They Hit,” Mark Brousseau observes, “Only 9% of all AP departments today are fully automated, where invoices flow into the organization, are processed touch-free, and posted directly to an ERP. On the other end, about 5% of organizations are completely manual and paper-based. That means most of us are somewhere in between.”
Brousseau also notes that, while 77% of AP departments employ some level of automation, 66% still process invoices from suppliers manually. That gap is often due to accounts payable processes that have been assembled piecemeal over time, rather than a far more efficient end-to-end approach to payment processing. Industry trends will continue to embrace automation and AI in 2025, and organizations that don’t keep up will be putting themselves at risk.
“No matter where you are on the automation scale, your goal should be to become fully automated. Today’s invoice-to-pay platforms make it easier than ever to automate end-to-end, from invoice receipt all the way through reconciliation and reporting.
AP teams spend 14% of our time chasing down invoices that have been submitted by suppliers. A recent study found it costs an average of $360 to respond to a single supplier inquiry. If you multiply that times each of the supplier inquiries you receive in a month, that is a lot of money.”
3. Businesses Can Earn Discounts and Rebates
For those tracking payment industry trends, 2025 is a year of doing more with less. An uncertain economy, continuing inflation, and tumultuous global politics have many businesses taking a more fiscally conservative approach.
As Mark Brousseau puts it, “When the economy is uncertain, when we have big geopolitical events, when we have turbulence in the economy, you’d better believe that back office efficiency is critical. It’s going to put more pressure on AP to find ways to do more with less.” That pressure has led 75% of CFOs to put more focus on data analytics, with 44% working to automate previously manual processes.
That makes the prospect of earning rebates and discounts for early payment even more appealing in 2025 than usual. MHC NorthStar Payments Plus has emerged as a reliable tool for collecting rebates. Premium ACH and virtual card transactions are processed through the Paymode network, ensuring that every available rebate and discount is captured automatically. Even better, Payments Plus virtually eliminates fraud risk (Paymode has processed $450 billion worth of invoices with zero cases of fraud) and cuts processing time by 50%.
Find out how B2B payment rebate programs work and the businesses benefits they facilitate >
“Our goal is to help finance teams do more than just manage payments—we want them to create value. Enabling teams to take advantage of all of the rebates available to them is an easy way to cut costs while driving greater value.”
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4. Prioritizing B2B Payment Security
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed an alarming increase in financial crime. Criminals took advantage of companies that were wholly unprepared for the sudden shift to remote work and employees who were caught up in rapidly changing business processes. Coming out of pandemic protocols, organizations adopted new B2B payment security processes to reflect the physical and technological changes in the payments industry — as well as the latest payment fraud trends. As AI tools have transformed B2B payments over the past year or so, businesses again find themselves scrambling to set guidelines that keep data secure while also embracing this new tech.
All of those factors have driven increased demand for more secure methods of payment, such as Premium ACH and virtual card transactions. Virtual card payments are projected to generate $17.4 trillion in global revenue by 2029. Same-day ACH payments have grown by 22% in 2025. That’s especially significant for companies watching trends in cross border payments, more than 20% of which are B2B transactions.
Automating payments with MHC NorthStar Payments Plus provides multiple layers of security, including multi-factor verification, OFAC screening, and continuous monitoring. Automated software also secures payments and detects fraud with transaction monitoring, payment reconciliation, updated firewalls, and regular risk assessments on your network.
“Securing 5. B2B Payment Option Flexibility and Instant Payments
Another lingering effect of the COVID era is an increased expectation of touchless convenience. Businesses want flexibility with B2B payments and the related interactions, including contactless options, multiple payment methods, and even one-click purchasing.
Research on digital payment trends shows that 80% of B2B buyers say their interactions with businesses lack personalization. Demand for instant payments is also on the rise, with real-time payments projected to replace US$18.9 trillion in ACH and check-based B2B payments in the US by 2028, according to Deloitte.
This shift will continue as B2B payments roles are increasingly filled by Millennial and Gen Z customers. Gen Z is ready to embrace a fully digital experience, while Millennials look for a combination of digital and human interactions. Both expect more flexible and personalized payment options than prior generations
6. Cross-Border Payments Drive Growth
Few topics in the B2B sphere are hotter right now than cross border payments trends. 2025 has seen big leaps in international B2B payments, with the World Economic Forum (WEF) declaring cross-border payments “an engine for economic growth.” B2B cross-border payments currently generate $31.6 trillion dollars annually and are projected to hit $50 trillion by 2032.
Automating your AP system enables your business to make secure, real-time payments using Premium ACH and virtual cards, simplifying what can be complex international transactions. MHC Payments Plus ensures your system can interface seamlessly with bank requirements for virtual payments, wires, and other cross-border transactions.
7. Embedded Payments Play a Bigger Part
Embedded finance is one of the most promising trends in digital payments looking ahead to 2026. Embedded payments are integrated seamlessly into an organization’s software platform. That removes friction from payments and improves customer experience by allowing consumers to complete their transactions without navigating to a different platform.
Studies on global payment trends confirm that embedded finance is rapidly growing in importance. The value of transactions made using embedded payment tools is projected to increase 134% by 2028, accounting for $2.5 trillion globally. That makes automated software solutions that enable virtual cards and ACH payments a must-have moving forward.
8. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Solutions for B2B Payments
The concept of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is gaining major popularity in the B2B payments industry. BNPL plans enable customers to split their payments into multiple installments rather than paying the full amount at the time of purchase. A combination of convenience, low interest rates, and appealing credit limits have made this form of payment one of the fastest growing trends of 2025.
BNPL payments are projected to generate more than $90 billion globally by 2030, a 45% growth since 2021. Implementing a BNPL plan that can accommodate a high volume of customers would be virtually impossible without an automated B2B payment solution. An automated system with AI-driven tools is a must.
9. Mobile Access to Make Payments
Mobile payments are yet another trend that has been on the grow for years, and that growth shows no sign of slowing. In 2024, the global mobile payment industry reached a valuation of approximately $3.84 trillion. Forecasts suggest this figure will climb to around $4.97 trillion in 2025, with long-term projections estimating a surge to over $26.5 trillion by 2032.
Making it easy for B2B customers to make mobile payments using smartphones, tablets, wearables, or other portable devices is more important than ever. An automated accounts payable system with AI capabilities makes it simpler to integrate with payment apps, mobile wallets, and other mobile commerce touch points.
10. Avoiding Duplicate Payments and Errors
In the best of times, companies want to avoid making duplicate supplier payments at all costs. Not only does it impact your cash flow, but it takes valuable time and resources to determine the cause of the duplication and to right the initial wrong. In a more uncertain economic time, though, companies will not be able to afford to make extra payments to vendors.
As it stands, 1-2,5% of all payments are duplicates or payment errors. While an annoyance usually, duplicate payments could seriously hamstring an organization’s ability to do business during an economic downturn.
As Mary Schaeffer of AP Now addressed in her webinar “Maximize Your AP Impact: Action Steps for Success,” avoiding duplicate payments needs to be a top priority for any AP team. Her solution: implement standards for AP best practices and invest in an AP automation system that eliminates the error-prone manual processes that lead to most duplicated payments.
“Automation Stay On Top of Payment Industry Trends in 2025 with AP Automation
It’s a time of change in the B2B payments industry. As manual processes and paper checks go out the door, virtual cards, ACH transactions, and other forms of digital payments will keep growing in importance. Artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to redefine possibilities and empower customers. International and cross-border transactions are easier — and more valuable — than ever.
MHC NorthStar with Payments Plus is a stellar automation solution for accounts payable and your ultimate financial digital transformation. Focusing on scalability and agility, our solution boasts features such as AI assistance, intelligent invoice capture, and automated invoice processing. Streamline multiple integrated processes that your AP department relies on and be ready for what comes next. Ready to prepare for the future? Request a demo today to learn more.
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