Four possible futures for commercial payments

Corporate treasurers could be managing AI-routed transactions that settle around the clock in one market and invoice-to-payment cycles lasting at least five business days in another by 2030, according to a Deloitte analysis that questions whether commercial payments will converge on a single global model.

Written by Deloitte Consulting LLP senior manager Tanmay Agarwal, manager Marco Albonico and senior consultant Ankit Surana, ‘The Future of Global Commercial Payments in 2030’ maps four plausible scenarios according to the pace of innovation and the willingness of markets and institutions to cooperate. Countries could occupy one scenario or move between them as the decade unfolds. Its framework draws on payment infrastructure, fintech depth, regulation, digital-asset policy, data standards and demand for cross-border services. 

Utilitarian markets would combine selective technology adoption with a largely domestic focus. Their payment journey could take five to ten or more business days from invoice to supplier receipt, with emailed or paper invoices, batch clearing and partly manual reconciliation. Real-time payments would remain concentrated in urgent, high-value, payroll and government use cases, while correspondent banking continued to support international flows.

Soloist markets would sit at the opposite end of the innovation scale without achieving broad international compatibility. In-country payments could arrive the same day or almost instantly, supported by embedded workflows and proprietary rails. Multinationals operating across three such markets might nevertheless encounter three real-time systems, e-invoicing mandates and foreign-exchange windows, leaving global cash visibility and liquidity optimisation fragmented.

Plug and Player markets would favour shared standards over rapid experimentation. Structured invoices, digital identity and bank APIs could bring most payments down to hours or the same day, with ISO 20022 data travelling alongside the funds. Cross-border improvements would accumulate through interoperable infrastructure, although domestic providers could become dependent on global schemes, ERP suppliers and international fintech platforms.

Trendsetter markets offer the most automated scenario. AI would select payment routes according to urgency, cost, data quality, liquidity and risk, with domestic settlement completed in seconds and cross-border payments approaching real time on a 24/7 basis. Tokenised deposits, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies could handle selected flows alongside bank money. Shared infrastructure would also concentrate cyber and operational risk, while liability and supervisory rules could lag behind autonomous transactions.

Multinational treasury teams may have to accommodate elements of all four worlds. Faster settlement changes the timing of liquidity and foreign-exchange decisions, while incompatible domestic systems preserve the need for parallel connections and reconciliation. Deloitte also warns that smaller companies could remain on legacy infrastructure as larger groups adopt agent-orchestrated payments, creating different service levels within the same supply chain.

Deloitte identifies cleaner structured data, simpler operating models, flexible payment hubs and stronger APIs as measures that remain useful across the scenarios. It also recommends mapping gaps in cross-border payment methods and applying compliance controls when developing digital-asset products. For treasurers, the report’s central complication is coexistence: settlement may accelerate, but cash, risk and payment data will still have to be managed across markets moving at different speeds.

 

Centalion deploys AI agent for trade finance

Centalion has deployed an AI treasury agent that allows its treasury staff to use natural-language instructions when managing trade finance facilities and instruments, while retaining the company’s existing validation and approval controls.

Early results from its first production use case show issuance processing time falling by around 55% and amendment processing time by about 80%. Centalion estimates that extending the system across its trade finance activity could release more than 60 working days of treasury capacity each year, although that figure remains a projection.

The commodity trading company built the agent inside its own cloud environment, combining a large language model with structured workflows and rules specific to individual facilities. A user can ask whether enough facility and fronting capacity is available to issue or amend an instrument. The system then interprets the request, retrieves the relevant data, applies the controls and prepares a transaction for human approval.

Built-in governance remains separate from the language model. Validations and approvals are enforced through the orchestration layer, leaving treasury staff accountable for the resulting decision. Removing manual movement between systems and repeated data entry is also intended to reduce operational errors.

Komgo’s Konsole platform supplies the underlying trade finance data. Centalion has used the system for more than five years to manage off-balance-sheet instruments across its banking counterparties, but staff still had to switch between systems to retrieve information and follow transaction progress.

Linkage between the two environments is provided through Komgo’s Model Context Protocol connector. This allows the agent to access Konsole while Centalion retains its own AI model, business rules and orchestration logic. The companies said the approach avoided a separate point-to-point integration project.

Olivier Thevenon, treasury manager at Centalion, said: “We didn’t want to just build another chatbot. We wanted to change the way our Treasury team interacts with technical infrastructure. The agent can understand an instruction, apply our rules, and prepare a transaction in seconds while the decision remains with the people in the Treasury team. For us, this deployment demonstrates the real potential of agentic AI in a commodity trader’s Treasury department: removing friction without removing accountability.”

Following the initial deployment for Centalion’s off-balance-sheet instrument syndicated facility, the company is extending the architecture to its other trade finance facilities. It also plans to add further automation and control functions, using the existing production system as the starting point.

 

ECB clears UniCredit to take control of Commerzbank

European Central Bank approval allows UniCredit to exceed a 30% equity interest in Commerzbank and raise its holding without an upper limit, removing a key supervisory obstacle to control of the German bank.

UniCredit expects the remaining regulatory processes and offer conditions to be completed by the end of 2026. It would then hold about 50% of Commerzbank’s voting rights and assume control, although the ECB decision does not complete the transfer. 

July’s takeover results showed shares representing 17.60% of Commerzbank’s capital were tendered. Combined with its directly held 26.77% and delivery rights over 3.22%, UniCredit’s position reached 47.59%, equivalent to 49.65% of voting rights because Commerzbank’s treasury shares cannot vote. 

Commerzbank says strategic and operational management remains with its board until control changes. It has also stressed that holding close to half the votes would not allow UniCredit to impose every structural measure: a domination agreement requires a 75% qualified majority, while squeeze-out thresholds are at least 90% or 95%, depending on the route used. 

Remaining approvals will therefore determine when UniCredit gains voting control, while deeper legal integration would require further shareholder support and procedural steps.

 

Rising rates threaten US share buyback surge

US corporate share buybacks are expected to reach $1.7tn in 2027, although higher borrowing costs could interrupt their recent acceleration by making equity issuance more attractive relative to debt financing.

Goldman Sachs Research forecasts that repurchases will rise from $1.5tn in 2026, supported by increased activity among companies supplying artificial intelligence infrastructure. Their spending has offset a decline in buybacks by hyperscalers, according to Ben Snider, chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs Research.

The balance between debt and equity financing has moved sharply, however. Rising interest rates have narrowed the gap between the S&P 500 cost of equity and the cost of debt to about two percentage points, one of its smallest levels in recent decades.

“However, if interest rates continue to rise, a narrowing gap between the cost of debt and cost of equity will likely restrain the pace of corporate buyback growth,” Snider wrote.

When debt is substantially cheaper than equity, companies have a stronger financial incentive to borrow or retain debt funding while repurchasing shares. As those costs converge, issuing equity becomes comparatively more attractive and buying it back becomes harder to justify, particularly for companies considering how to divide cash between shareholder distributions, investment and balance-sheet protection.

Boards could therefore reassess both the scale and financing of repurchase programmes. Companies may reduce new authorisations, slow execution of existing plans or preserve cash as debt matures and must be refinanced at more expensive rates. The effect will vary according to each company’s balance sheet, cash generation and access to funding.

Snider’s base case remains that buyback growth will continue in 2027 because Goldman Sachs Research expects interest rates to decline next year. Its $200bn projected increase would represent growth of roughly 13% from 2026, leaving the rates outlook as an important test of whether the surge can be sustained.

 

Stablecoin interest outpaces adoption among international SMEs

Stablecoins are attracting broad interest among internationally active European SMEs, but fewer than three in ten currently accept them from customers, according to research that points to operational and regulatory obstacles behind the adoption gap.

Neo’s ‘From Friction to Flow: How Stablecoins Could Reshape International B2B Collections’ report found that 88% of respondents believed stablecoins could improve cross-border business-to-business collections. Only 27% accepted them for customer payments, while 17% used them to pay suppliers or other counterparties. That split suggests collection use has advanced further than outgoing payments.

Operational complexity was the leading barrier, cited by 29%. Regulatory uncertainty followed at 23%, with tax reporting selected by 21% and accounting treatment by 18%. The findings indicate that interest in faster settlement has yet to resolve how stablecoin transactions fit into companies’ existing controls, records and reporting processes.

Automatic conversion into fiat appealed to 74% of respondents, including 82% in France and 79% in Italy. Such an arrangement would allow a customer to pay in stablecoins while the recipient receives conventional currency, reducing the need for its treasury team to hold or manage the digital asset.

International collections already cause difficulties for 94% of those surveyed, while 36% said funds typically took at least two business days to arrive. Faster access to liquidity was the most commonly selected stablecoin benefit at 29%, followed by round-the-clock settlement at 22%.

Regional experiences varied sharply. Eastern Europe was identified as one of the most difficult locations for collecting payments by 53% of respondents, compared with 19% for Africa, 17% for China and 16% for the Middle East. Western Europe was selected by just 1%.

Laurent Descout, chief executive and co-founder of Neo, said: “Stablecoins won't replace traditional currencies, nor will they be the best solution for every transaction. Businesses need access to different payment rails so they can choose the most efficient option depending on the market, currency and payment involved.”

Flexibility also emerged in the responses from prospective users, 34% of whom favoured different approaches for different payment flows. Neo surveyed 100 corporate treasurers and senior finance professionals in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

 

Amex proposes purchase-intent controls for AI agents

American Express has published a framework for recording what a customer has authorised an AI agent to buy and carrying those instructions through the payment process as a control on the eventual transaction.

Called Intent Intelligence, the framework would make the customer’s approved purchase parameters available to the card issuer before the agent completes a purchase. American Express said this earlier access could help issuers judge whether the transaction matches the customer’s instructions, rather than relying solely on checks applied at or after payment.

“Building trust into AI-powered transactions is critical to the adoption of agentic commerce,” said Luke Gebb, head of global innovation at American Express. “Providing authorized purchase intent before an agent transacts can give issuers greater confidence that an agent is acting as a customer intended, while also helping issuers proactively manage risk and reduce the chance of costly disputes across the payments ecosystem.”

Under the proposed process, an AI agent first records instructions such as the approved merchant, maximum budget and other preferences. The customer authenticates their identity and confirms those terms before the agent is permitted to transact.

Once approval has been recorded, the system creates an Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token representing the principal constraints. That token can be used to obtain a secure digital payment credential for checkout, replacing the customer’s actual card number and limiting the credential according to the authorised purchase.

During subsequent stages, the ID and token can support fraud prevention, authorisation decisions and dispute handling. The purchase request can be checked against the recorded conditions, creating an evidence trail of what the customer approved before control passed to the agent.

Flexibility is built into the framework because the party collecting the instructions may differ between agentic commerce models. Amex said the approach is intended to preserve authorised intent regardless of who initially captures it.

The framework is available through the Amex Agentic Commerce Experiences Developer Kit. American Express is developing integrations for the kit and is also engaging with EMVCo on card-based agentic transactions and supporting the x402 Foundation’s work on internet-native payment standards.

Publication of the framework gives developers and payment providers a proposed model rather than an adopted common standard. Its wider usefulness will depend on whether agents, merchants, issuers and networks can exchange the intent data consistently while retaining clear customer authentication and control.

 

EBRD commits €40m to CEE private equity fund

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has committed up to €40m to a private equity fund intended to provide long-term capital to smaller businesses in Poland and elsewhere in central and eastern Europe.

Avallon MBO Fund IV is seeking commitments of €220m and has set a maximum size of €260m. It will invest through equity and quasi-equity instruments in small and medium-sized enterprises and small mid-cap companies.

Poland will receive at least 70% of the fund’s commitments, while as much as 30% can be deployed elsewhere in the region. Eligible markets are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Regional private equity fundraising has faced difficult conditions in recent years, according to the EBRD, restricting the availability of growth finance for smaller companies. Its participation is intended to support Avallon’s fundraising and attract further institutional investors to the vehicle.

Investment will target businesses seeking capital for expansion, operational development, innovation and market consolidation. The fund will also support management teams taking ownership stakes, continuing Avallon’s focus on management buyouts and corporate succession.

Established in Poland, Avallon has operated for more than 25 years. The EBRD also invested in its three preceding funds.

Beyond the immediate fundraising, the commitment gives the EBRD an indirect route to finance companies that may be too small to access public capital markets or attract large private equity funds. These businesses can use equity capital without adding scheduled interest and principal payments to their cash flows, although shareholders surrender part of their ownership and future returns.

Since beginning operations in Poland, the EBRD has invested more than €17bn across over 610 projects. Its financing includes debt, equity and equity-like instruments provided either directly to companies or through investment vehicles such as Avallon MBO Fund IV.

 

Movere launches cross-border payments and hiring platform

Movere has launched a platform combining payment acceptance, international hiring support and market-entry advice, with the new company targeting businesses that want to sell and employ staff across several countries.

Businesses can connect to more than 500 payment methods in over 100 countries through a single integration, according to Movere. Its Pay service supports online and in-person transactions, with merchants setting routing rules based on factors such as processing cost or the likelihood of approval.

Integration and multi-entity onboarding are handled through its Connect service. Movere said AI agents using Model Context Protocol can complete the technical integration in as little as 15 minutes, compared with the weeks of development work that may be required when businesses establish separate connections.

Separate functions extend the platform beyond payment processing. Grow, provided through Kumo HR, allows companies to hire and pay workers in countries where they do not have a local legal entity. Unite covers donations and membership fees for community organisations, while Empower provides individual consultations on regulation and market setup.

Praful Morar, co-founder and chief executive of Movere, said: “Merchants should not need a team of engineers to sell in a new market. Growth should not stop at a border.”

Founded by Morar alongside chief strategy officer Walé Abidakun and chief commercial officer Lukas Pukaj, Movere is financed by its three founders. Their previous employers include Worldpay, Safecharge, Nuvei, BGC Group, PayPal and NatWest.

The launch brings several services commonly bought from different payment providers, employment platforms and advisers into one interface. For finance teams, the proposition centres on reducing the number of integrations and local arrangements required when entering another market, while retaining control over the rules used to route transactions. This could help companies balance acceptance rates against processing costs across currencies and jurisdictions.

 

WEX, Mastercard plan Asia-Pacific fleet payments network

WEX and Mastercard are developing a unified fleet payments network for Asia-Pacific that will bring fuel, vehicle maintenance, tolls, parking and wider business expenses into a single payment arrangement.

Fleet operators often manage these costs through separate cards and systems, leaving finance teams to combine transaction records and reconcile several bills. The planned network will connect payment acceptance with consolidated reporting, allowing managers to view a broader range of vehicle-related spending through one account and invoice. Consolidated data could also simplify budgeting and vehicle-cost comparisons.

Transaction controls will be configurable in real time and embedded into business workflows. Line-item information, including fuel type and the number of litres purchased, is intended to give fleet managers more detail than a standard card transaction and support automated reporting.

Mixed-energy fleets are another part of the design. The partners plan to cover petrol and diesel vehicles alongside hybrid and electric models, reducing the need for separate payment accounts as companies change the composition of their fleets.

Asia-Pacific fleet-card transaction volumes were estimated at approximately US$310bn in 2025, equivalent to 31% of global volumes, according to KPMG and industry data cited by the companies. The same sources project regional volumes will grow at a compound annual rate of 14.3% through 2030.

Expansion will take place across selected regional markets, although WEX and Mastercard have not specified a launch timetable or named the first countries. They expect the programme to process billions of dollars annually as coverage grows.

Underlying the network will be Mastercard’s payment infrastructure alongside WEX’s fleet management and commercial payment systems. Its practical value for finance teams will depend on the breadth of merchant acceptance, regional coverage and the consistency of data supplied across fuel stations, maintenance providers, toll operators and charging networks.

 

MassPay embeds Bottomline’s Paymode cards and ACH

MassPay is partnering with business payments provider Bottomline to embed Paymode virtual cards and Premium ACH into its payment orchestration platform, giving customers two more ways to pay US vendors without moving into a separate system.

From November 2026, businesses using MassPay will be able to route vendor payments through Paymode’s enrolled network alongside other payment methods already handled by the platform. The integration will bring payment initiation, status information and controls into the same environment.

Paymode’s virtual card capability will support card-based supplier settlement, while Premium ACH will provide another electronic option for vendors paid through US bank accounts.

Businesses still using cheques for some suppliers will gain a route to move those payments online. As the capabilities will sit inside MassPay, finance teams will not need another portal for the transactions or a separate process for submitting payment instructions.

Controls and visibility form another part of the arrangement. Customers will be able to manage who receives payment and which method is used, with payment information available through their existing MassPay workflow. The companies say the integration should also reduce exposure to payment fraud.

Through the embedded arrangement, MassPay customers will gain access to Bottomline’s vendor network while continuing to manage different payment scenarios through the MassPay platform.

Only payments to US vendors will be covered. Their value to individual customers will depend on supplier enrolment in Paymode and the suitability of virtual cards or Premium ACH for each particular vendor payment.

 

Finastra targets manual SBLC processing at US banks

Finastra has launched StandbyX, a cloud-enabled service for US banks that want to digitise standby letter of credit processing without installing a full trade finance platform. Standby letters of credit are used across trade and non-trade transactions to back payment and performance obligations. Finastra says larger institutions generally handle them within broader trade finance systems, while many regional and mid-sized banks still depend on manual or partly manual workflows.

Regional banks with low to moderate transaction volumes are the main target for StandbyX. The software-as-a-service model is intended to reduce the implementation work, integrations and testing normally associated with a wider platform deployment.

Built from the SBLC module in Finastra’s Trade Innovation platform, the product will automate processing and bring risk controls into the same system. Trade Innovation is used by more than 150 banks worldwide, according to Finastra.

Instead of deploying a broad trade finance platform, banks can use StandbyX as a narrower route into digital trade operations for lower-volume business. Finastra has not disclosed pricing or an implementation timetable.

Compared with Trade Innovation, StandbyX concentrates on one instrument. That smaller scope is aimed at banks whose SBLC volumes do not justify a broader system replacement.