CTMfile continues to serve as a trusted source of intelligence for corporate treasury and payments professionals worldwide. Through our articles, interviews, industry roundups, videos, and podcasts, we consistently deliver insights that matter.

What sets our content apart is a sharp understanding of what treasury and payments executives rely on: relevant, practical, and timely information to drive decisions and achieve success. In this article, we highlight essential payments-related statistics and insights sourced from 2025 survey reports and credible research—data that remains vital for the rest of this year and beyond. These figures offer more than context—they provide clarity and direction for navigating today’s dynamic payments landscape.

Larger organizations face greater payments fraud risk

The Association for Financial Professionals® (AFP) 2025 Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report, sponsored by Truist, reveals a key insight: “Larger organizations (those with annual revenue of at least US$1 billion) were more susceptible to payments fraud attacks than were smaller ones (those with annual revenue less than $1 billion): 83% compared to 73%.”

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting the personal digital lives of corporate executives

According to a new Ponemon Institute study commissioned by BlackCloak—Digital Executive Protection Research Report 2025—corporate executives “Often transition from their homes to the office environment using personal devices that are not covered by corporate security.”

Aware of this vulnerability, cybercriminals are intensifying attacks on executives, board members, and key personnel—shifting focus to their personal digital lives by compromising home networks and unsecured personal or family devices with malware and ransomware in order to access sensitive, high-value confidential information and achieve their financial payments objective.

The Ponemon Institute study underscores this growing risk. Between 2023 and 2025, the percentage of organizations reporting targeted cyber attacks on the personal digital lives of their executives rose from 43% to 51%. Of those impacted in 2025, 22% experienced between 7 and 10 cyber attacks—representing a 32% increase over 2023. Concern about future attacks on executives’ personal digital assets also remains high, with 62% of respondents expressing ongoing apprehension.

Longer payment terms loom for export companies in 2025

The unpredictability of US trade policy has eroded exporters’ confidence, as per the Allianz Trade Global Survey 2025, prompting growing concerns around delayed payments and financial risk. Based on the survey findings, more than half of exporters expect longer payment terms in the next six to 12 months, with delays exceeding seven days in half of those cases.

Allianz Trade further estimates that just 11% of export companies are still paid within 30 days—a figure that drops even lower among major exporting nations such as the US, China, and Germany. Roughly 70% of companies indicate receiving payments between 30 and 70 days. Exporters in the UK (75%), France (73%), Italy (73%), and the US (73%) experience slightly higher levels of extended payment terms than their global counterparts.

Payment orchestration is gaining greater strategic significance

As highlighted in the Global Payments 2025 Commerce and Payment Trends Report, payment orchestration as a mature technology allows organizations to effectively “Route and process payments among many payment providers, which is critical in promoting financial transparency, integrating multiple financial platforms and banks and administering payments to reduce loss or fraud.”

The report also points out that payment orchestration has become firmly established, with 76% of businesses having used the technology extensively for five years or more. Its relevance continues to grow, with more than a third of surveyed organizations (35%) planning to allocate additional resources to it—emphasising its expanding role in modern payments infrastructure.

The report outlines several core advantages of payment orchestration: enhanced fraud detection and prevention (cited by 89% of respondents), improved operational efficiency (84%), better customer experience (83%), and increased customer loyalty and engagement (82%). Looking ahead, the integration of emerging AI tools is expected to further strengthen these benefits.

Only a small fraction of companies have completely automated their payments processes

While business leaders recognize that automated payments offer advantages such as saving time and money, minimizing errors, and boosting efficiency and cash flow, many companies have yet to completely embrace automation, as shown in the American Express (Amex) Trendex B2B Payments Edition survey launched in March 2025.

In fact, only 17% of businesses surveyed have fully automated their payments processes, while a comparable share—15%—have not automated any part of them at all, according to the same survey.

A $10 million transaction—the largest instant payment in US history—was made in 2025

Following a transaction limit increase on February 9, 2025, by The Clearing House (TCH), which operates the RTP® (real-time payments) network, the U.S. recorded its largest-ever instant payment—$10 million—just a day later.

The $10 million payment was made by BNY and transmitted over TCH’s RTP® network. This marked the first-ever payment on the RTP® network exceeding $1 million.

BNY described the transaction in a press release as an “Inter-company liquidity management payment, from a leading, global transfer agent, Computershare, to an account at another financial institution.”

This landmark payment “Marks a significant milestone in the evolution of instant payments, unlocking new opportunities for businesses to move money faster, optimize cash flow, and streamline financial operations”, added the release by BNY.

In conclusion, payments are rapidly becoming the bedrock of corporate finance and treasury, serving as a critical pillar of global commerce and the digital economy. As US trade policy remains uncertain and payment technologies evolve at a fast pace, the anticipated rise of payments automation and the growing adoption of real-time payments will open up significant opportunities for stakeholders across the global payments ecosystem in 2025 and beyond. However, these advancements may also open the door to new vulnerabilities that threat actors could exploit to perpetrate payments fraud.

Strengthening security control frameworks and proactively addressing potential vulnerabilities will be critical to protecting organizations in the battle against payments fraud.

Complementing this, treasury and payments professionals can gain valuable insights by regularly engaging with CTMfile’s articles, expert interviews, industry roundups, videos, and episodes of the OpenTreasury Podcast. Over the next 12 months, this content can help companies elevate their payments strategy into a competitive advantage—unlocking value that reaches far beyond payments transactions.