2025 saw much turbulence and change in B2B, driven mostly by economic volatility and the huge shifts brought by generative AI, agentic AI, and Stablecoin.

It's a universal truth that change is inevitable. And in business, it's often welcome as it can be a signal of growth and new ways to maximise value. So, as we enter the second half of the decade, what should B2B payments leaders be looking at to get a competitive edge?

Trade optimism

Despite some upheavals, the prospects for global commerce remain strong, but friction persists. Even today, B2B payments remain largely manual and making cross-border payments can feel like navigating a maze. In fact, fragmented platforms, compliance hurdles, and FX complexity make these transactions one of the biggest sources of friction in B2B; McKinsey says 40% of surveyed brands experience friction in cross-border payments due to compliance, currency, or tax issues.

In 2026, the best bet the CPO, CFO and CIO can take to maximise opportunity in potential new markets will be to make cross-border payments feel as seamless as domestic ones.

Compliance-ready, multi-currency platforms that automate as much as possible could be the ideal way to eliminate barriers, reduce risk, and unlock every opportunity.

Is 2026 the year we standardise on ‘invisible payments’?

Going forward, the most important eCommerce innovations will be about making payments so seamless buyers hardly notice them. We need to use every available technology to make processing transactions essentially invisible—ceasing to be a separate step (as it disrupts workflows) and instead integrating it directly into the systems and workflows we ask our customers and partners to use.

We will soon visualise POs that, once approved, automatically trigger instant payments; or, if we hit a project milestone, funds are automatically released. In practice, this could mean reconciliation disappearing as workflows and payments merge, cash cycles accelerate with funds released instantly upon predefined triggers, and, perhaps most importantly for your CEO, ease of buying becoming a strategic advantage, not only a convenience.

And if you still view payments as a standalone back-office function, you’re off the pace, I’m afraid. Embedded finance will soon be a B2B customer expectation. So, the businesses that adopt invisible payments now will set the benchmark for efficiency and customer experience that will carry them successfully through 2026, whatever it may have in store for us.

AI is inevitable

The real impact of AI is only beginning in payments—with the next twelve months set to be about using it as the catalyst for radically accelerating credit, invoicing, and collections workflows.

Practical business AI in 2026 will be about not only automation, but moving to true intelligence that will anticipate risk, prevent revenue leakage, and strengthen your customer relationships. So get set for smarter ways to offer credit in terms of flexible, real-time optimisation of your credit limits and terms. We’ll also see AI helping you understand your customers so well you’ll be enabled to identify churn risks before they turn into defaults to enable organisations to move at speeds many have only dreamt about.

Time to move beyond rigid payment terms

The pace of advanced back-office tech innovation also means yesterday’s rigid net-30 or net-60 terms are increasingly outmoded. In 2026, B2B buyers will expect payment schedules that flex in real time with their cash flow, project cycles, and market conditions.

In response, you need to be ready to offer hyper-personalised, dynamic payment terms that adapt to your buyers’ real-time financial requirements. As IDC’s Senior Director of Enterprise Applications Research at IDC, Kevin Parmenter, says, ‘‘Forget rigid terms: suppliers must proactively offer flexible, tailored options.” He adds, “The expectation won’t be flexibility, but the perfect flexible option for me, right now.” He’s absolutely correct.

As flexible terms turn negotiations into opportunities to build trust. Buyers reward suppliers that anticipate and adapt to their needs; if you're entering 2026 unable to do that, take the time to fix it.

There are a wealth of solutions now to help you with scenario planning, liquidity forecasting and gaining a 360-degree customer financial view. Modern, API-first architectures will radically reduce reconciliation errors through system-to-system syncing to speed up credit and invoice workflows, and move you closer to a fully connected, integrated view of all customer and cash positions.

2026 is shaping up to be all about digitisation, AI, and API as vectors for beneficial B2B payment evolution. We’re ready to get to work to make this happen.

Brandon Spear is CEO of global B2B payments platform TreviPay.