The evolution of business payments has lagged when compared to the pace of new adoption methods in other segments, marked by a gradual transformation to electronic payments, such as bank wire transfers like ACH and EFT payments.
Advancements in globalization and eCommerce, accompanied by the legislation to regulate transactions and protect transacting parties, and the improvement of domestic and cross-border payment rails, have contributed to the uptake of new methods.
Business Payment Market Development
According to the latest worldwide market study from Juniper Research, the value of business-to-business (B2B) payments will grow by 40 percent in 2028 -- that's up from $89 trillion in 2024, due to digital payment adoption in developing markets.
Instant payments will revolutionize B2B payments by enabling cheaper and more secure international trade, with instant payments reaching 42 percent of all cross-border payments by 2028, at $16 trillion -- up from just 17 percent in 2024, at $5 trillion.
Juniper analysts anticipate that the adoption of ISO 20022, a universal standard for instant payments’ financial messaging, will drive third-party providers to build additional value-added services that create efficiencies for the multinational enterprise.
The extra remittance data that modern systems support can enable use cases such as automated accounting; drawing businesses to modern payment rails.
"The key advantage of the messaging language used in ISO 20022 is that messages are easier for machines to read. This makes it simpler to develop AI-based solutions around these payments; driving innovation," said Michael Greenwood, research analyst at Juniper Research.
Juniper Research found that in many emerging markets, there were gaps in the access to banking for smaller businesses. This was restricting digital access and innovation.
To better serve smaller businesses, B2B payment providers must focus on offering B2B payment capabilities via popular local digital wallets and mobile money services.
This approach can then provide improved access to low‑cost digital payments and can help B2B providers create value-added services offering access to credit -- a key pain point for small businesses.
Outlook for B2B Payment Applications Growth
Despite regional variations in preferred payment schemes and the unique issues they face, there are also overarching commonalities and location and customer-agnostic challenges.
That said, I believe domestic and international markets bear resemblances in terms of the challenges faced by B2B payments. However, the degree of complexities involved varies greatly and must be considered separately.
Moreover, new global instant payments are competing with a range of fintech payment methods, from other forms of wire transfers, card payments, and unique local payment programs.