EP1012: The current trends in B2B payments for 2026

The future of B2B payments in 2026 is being reshaped not by incremental upgrades, but by a fundamental shift toward 'consumerization'—where the seamless, intuitive experiences of personal digital finance are being brought into the complex world of business transactions. Pat Birmingham of Adflex argues that the biggest transformation isn’t just faster payments, but the rise of agentic AI that can autonomously source goods, generate purchase orders, and even initiate payments on a company’s behalf—effectively turning AI into a virtual procurement agent. This shift is accelerated by standards like ISO 20022, which streamline data exchange, and the upcoming Digital ID Act, which promises to solve long-standing onboarding bottlenecks by providing verifiable legal identities for both businesses and their authorized personnel. Yet, trust remains the critical hurdle: while AI can automate sourcing and approvals, the question of whether companies will allow AI to act on their behalf—especially with financial and security implications—remains unresolved. As one guest puts it, 'We’re not just automating payments—we’re automating decisions.' The real game-changer, however, is straight-through processing (STP), where buyers initiate payments on suppliers’ behalf, bypassing manual steps and dramatically speeding up cash flow. This is already enabling instant payments via cards with embedded financing.