The State of B2B Payments in 2026: Trends and Data
Virtual card volume reaches $6.8 trillion as more than three quarters of organizations report payment fraud attempts. Payments as a Service moves from edge case to default.
Jun 25, 2026
Use this Finexio summary as a planning aid. When a decision depends on benchmarks, customer-specific claims, or cited statistics, validate the underlying source material during review.
Executive summary
Virtual card volume reaches $6.8 trillion as more than three quarters of organizations report payment fraud attempts. Payments as a Service moves from edge case to default. For finance teams, the practical question is not whether AP should be automated. It is who owns the work after an invoice is approved: supplier outreach, payment method selection, exception handling, fraud controls, support, and reporting.
Why it matters now
B2B payments are moving from bank-file execution and manual status work toward managed orchestration. The pressure is not just payment cost; it is fraud exposure, supplier experience, exception work, and the inability to see payment status cleanly after approval.
Finexio point of view
Finexio gives finance teams a way to modernize payment delivery without replacing the approval workflow. The buyer sends an approved payment file, and Finexio manages rail routing, supplier outreach, exceptions, controls, status, and reconciliation.
Operating moves to consider
- Separate invoice approval automation from payment execution ownership.
- Measure check share, supplier count, payment exceptions, and status requests together.
- Treat supplier enablement as an ongoing operation, not a one-time campaign.
- Review fraud controls around bank-account changes before moving more volume electronically.
Questions to validate
Which payment work still happens after invoice approval?
List the post-approval tasks that still sit with AP, treasury, or support, including supplier outreach, payment routing, exception handling, and status follow-up.
What share of supplier payments still need checks, reissues, or manual status follow-up?
Use check volume, failed payment count, reissue count, and supplier-status requests together so the team sees the real operating load, not only payment-method mix.
Which controls verify supplier changes before money moves?
Confirm who reviews supplier identity and bank-account changes, what independent evidence is required, and how the approval is logged before release.
What reconciliation output does finance need to close cleanly?
Define the fields accounting needs back from the payment workflow, including invoice, supplier, amount, date, tracking ID, funding record, and final status.