This is the first of a four-part article series

As 2025 unfolds amidst the backdrop of a US presidential transition, business leaders, payments executives, corporate finance and treasury professionals find themselves at a decisive moment. Reflecting on the focal areas and challenges that dominated 2024 is crucial, as many are likely to persist into the new year, alongside new complexities and opportunities.

Throughout 2024, CTMfile has been a trusted source for payments and treasury management insights, offering newsworthy roundups, engaging articles, thought-provoking interviews, and industry-specific videos and podcasts that resonated with our audience.

In this first part of the four-part series, we spotlight four payments-related aspects that are expected to be key focus areas for corporate treasury and finance professionals in 2025.

2024: A breakthrough year for real-time payments, with more to come in 2025

Real-time payments reached a new milestone in 2024 and is poised for continued dominance in 2025.

According to the December 2024 edition of the “Real-Time Payments World Map,” a Real-Time Payments Tracker® Series report by PYMNTS in collaboration with The Clearing House, “Real-time payments have reached new heights in 2024. In the United States, The Clearing House’s RTP® network recently surpassed an average of one million payments per day. In October, the network recorded nearly 32 million transactions worth more than $25 billion, marking increases of 6.2% and 9%, respectively, since September. The RTP network set a single-day record on Nov. 1 with 1.46 million transactions valued at $1.24 billion.”

The Clearing House, which runs the US instant payments RTP network, will raise the individual transaction limit to US$10 million, supporting the growth of high-value transactions in areas such as real estate, supply chain payments, and business-to-business (B2B) payments.

The new $10 million individual transaction limit for the RTP network will take effect on February 9, 2025. Previously, the limit was set at $1 million since its increase from $100,000 in April 2022.

"The $10 million transaction limit allows financial institutions and their customers to make larger payments in real time, continually enabling the RTP network to evolve to meet industry needs," said Margaret Weichert, Chief Product Officer, The Clearing House. 

The US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) real-time payments service, FedNow® Service is also redefining the nation’s real-time payments ecosystem.

The Federal Reserve Financial Services (FRFS) reported on November 22, 2024, that in the “Last quarter, more than 336,000 transactions were settled on the FedNow Service, with consumers and businesses sending an average of $190 million through the service per day.”

Mark Gould, Chief Payments Executive of Federal Reserve Financial Services, observed, “With more than 1,000 financial institutions on the network, we are well on our way to realizing the goal of having instant payments ubiquitously available and broadly used in the U.S., with benefits to consumers and businesses nationwide.”

Asia Pacific is home to some of the world’s largest real-time payments (RTP) markets, including India, China and Thailand. India stands as the clear leader in real-time payments, representing approximately 45% of global RTP transactions in 2023. It is followed by Brazil, Thailand, China, and South Korea, as highlighted in the 2024 Prime Time for Real-Time report, published by ACI Worldwide, in partnership with GlobalData.

 In “Europe, the new EU Instant Payments Regulation is expected to drive instant payments volume across the 27 EU member states”, the ACI report explains. Meanwhile, the Middle East has emerged as the fastest-growing market for instant payments.

Latin American countries are progressing with RTP modernization initiatives, aiming to emulate Brazil’s success in instant payments, observes the ACI report. In Africa, Nigeria is at the forefront of the RTP landscape. As the world’s largest free trade area, Africa recorded the “Highest real-time share of electronic payments in 2023”, reaching 40%, the ACI report further adds.

EY’s report, The rise of PayTech – seven forces shaping the future of payments, outlines five key characteristics of RTP that influence the people, processes, and technology at banks and non-banks alike: 24/7/365 availability, ISO 20022 messaging format, immediate access to deposited funds, irrevocable transactions and instant notifications. These features position RTP at a strategic advantage, enabling organizations to deliver value-added services such as immediate payments to vendors or employees, while also reducing transaction costs, and enhancing cash flow visibility and control over their working capital.

With real-time payments offering a wide range of benefits, including greater market efficiencies across economies, corporations, financial institutions, and governments of the world’s major economies are playing catch-up, as the widespread adoption of instant payments is expected to accelerate global RTP growth through 2025 and beyond. For corporations, this advancement is expected to improve the payments experience for treasury teams and foster greater transparency within the B2B payments ecosystem.

Companies to ramp up investment in embedded payments

“Embedded payments constitute the largest subsector within embedded finance, and their market value is estimated to be nearly 60% to 70% of that embedded finance, approximately $4.5 trillion by 2030”, states Aite-Novarica’s study, “Realizing the Embedded Payments Opportunity.”

Embedded payments are making the B2B leap. The attributes that have made embedded payments appealing to consumers are proving just as impactful in business environments, fuelling the integration of B2B transactions into business processes and supply chains, as noted in the 2025 Commerce and Payment Trends Report by Global Payments.

By embedding payment services into their existing systems, large enterprises can automate and streamline digital payment processes, lower costs, shorten payment cycles, create frictionless payment opportunities, and provide real-time visibility into cash flow. As a result, businesses can improve decision-making, unlock new revenue streams, and strengthen supplier relationships.

This may explain why “Embedded payments have become table stakes among enterprise companies”, points out the Global Payments report. However, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and mid-market companies are “Recognizing the opportunity — and stepping up their investments and capabilities to build embedded payments. Our survey shows that 3 in 4 enterprise-sized businesses (76%) report more than five years of experience using embedded payments. Meanwhile, SMBs (82%) and midmarket companies (63%) are much more likely to increase or significantly increase their investments in embedded payments compared with their larger counterparts in the coming year”, the Global Payments report adds.

Offering insights into which commerce sectors have adopted embedded payments more than others, nearly three-fourths (74%) of retail survey respondents in the Global Payments report indicated they “Were most likely to have been long-term users of embedded payments.” At the same time, other sectors, such as the automotive, hospitality and restaurant industries, “Have expressed the most interest in exploring embedded payments”, reflecting the increasing appeal of its potential benefits across diverse industries.

The S.P.I.D.E.R. web of payments fraud to trap more unsuspecting corporations

Payments fraud is evolving into something far more dangerous: It is now Sophisticated, Pervasive, Intricate, Deceptive, Expensive, and Relentless—a growing menace we refer to as the S.P.I.D.E.R. web of payments fraud.

Much like spiders carefully weave an intricate web to trap their unsuspecting prey, bad actors leverage the S.P.I.D.E.R. web to construct complex networks of deception to target unsuspecting or vulnerable companies and their key executives, aiming to extort money, access sensitive data, or disrupt information security systems. Often, these operations occur in the shadows and go unnoticed until the payments fraud has been perpetrated.

Given the increasing ingenuity of cyber criminals and their lack of geographical constraints, 2025 is expected to witness a marked jump in both existing and emerging forms of payments fraud.

Furthermore, the surge in business email compromise (BEC) and phishing attacks, coupled with a  sharp increase in deepfake fraud attempts in 2024, remains a cause for alarm. Findings from the 2025 Identity Fraud Report by the Entrust Cybersecurity Institute reveal that a deepfake incident occurred every five minutes in 2024. This suggests that, over the next 12 months and beyond, threat actors are expected to intensify their efforts to target corporate coffers and reputations.

With the advent and growing adoption of real-time payments, domestic transactions and cross-border payments are becoming faster and more cost-efficient. However, the immediacy and irreversibility of instant payments provide limited time to detect criminal activity or spot fraud. While real-time payments offer significant benefits to both consumers and businesses, these very features also make them an enticing target for criminals, likely contributing to a notable rise in payments fraud in 2025.

Moreover, as artificial intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates across industries, bad actors will increasingly exploit its capabilities to engineer payments fraud throughout 2025. AI-driven fraud is more complex, damaging, and scalable, indicating that payments fraud attacks are likely to become more severe, widespread, and frequent compared to the past.

Cybercriminals, equipped with AI tools, will increasingly infiltrate corporations with strategic precision, orchestrating payments fraud scams that are refined, targeted, and relentless. With payments fraud worldwide forecasted to maintain its upward climb, potentially costing $40.62 billion by 2027, organizations must recognize that the stakes are higher than ever.

To combat this evolving threat, CFOs and corporate treasurers must make payments fraud detection and prevention a top priority and approach securing payments as a vital and ongoing process. Corporations worldwide are encouraged to leverage AI-powered fraud prevention solutions to address the increased complexity and velocity of fraud, identifying and neutralizing threats before they result in substantial financial losses and reputational harm.

Additionally, the statement “To combat one of the biggest challenges facing the payment ecosystem: The growing sophistication of identity theft, fraudulent transactions and AI-enabled fraud” is prompting organizations across the payments ecosystem to experiment with biometrics, tokenization and other advanced digital security measures, as described in the Global Payments 2025 Commerce and Payment Trends Report.

Equally important will be for finance leaders, treasurers, and their teams to develop a thorough understanding of the prominent existing and emerging types of payments fraud they might encounter. Such understanding will enable a strategic preventive stance that enhances both detection and protection against payments fraud in 2025. Ongoing and specialized payments fraud training for corporate treasury professionals will also help in mitigating payments fraud, thereby reducing the impact of such losses in the rapidly changing payments landscape.

Payment orchestration’s importance poised to increase

As highlighted in the Global Payments report, payment orchestration as a mature technology enables organizations to “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 reveals that 76% of businesses have widely used payment orchestration for five years or more, and “its importance continues to grow.” In fact, over a third (35%) of survey respondents indicated they plan to invest additional resources into the technology, further emphasising its value.

The major benefits of payment orchestration, as outlined in the report, include advanced fraud detection and prevention capabilities (89%), greater operational efficiency (84%), improved customer experience (83%), and stronger customer loyalty and engagement (82%). As new AI tools emerge, the survey report predicts further improvements in these outcomes.

To illustrate the impact of payment orchestration, the Global Payments report offers the example of a large retail site with thousands of vendors.

“Right now, shoppers who purchase an item through the retailer’s site pay the retailer directly, and the retailer, in turn, pays the vendors. With payment orchestration technologies now available, the retailer can disperse those funds to vendors instantly as payments come in. Both the retailer and vendors are paid far more efficiently and quickly, reducing friction on the back end and making commerce more efficient for everyone.”

The report further recommends that orchestration platforms can handle different forms of payment—from real-time payments to ACH, virtual cards, and even paper checks — through a single interface, a feature that is particularly beneficial for B2B payments.

As organizations navigate the complexities of the global digital payments ecosystem, payment orchestration has become an indispensable tool. With advancements in its functionality and features anticipated in 2025, its significance is poised to increase. For businesses seeking to maintain a competitive edge, payment orchestration is set to become essential for driving growth and ensuring long-term success.

In summary, payments are now emerging as the cornerstone of corporate finance and treasury. As stated in the PYMNTS eBook Outlook 2030: How Platforms and Networks Will Power the Future of Business Payments, “Forward-thinking companies are transforming payments from mere transactional utilities into strategic components of their business models.” According to the eBook, this transformation will involve “Integrating payments more deeply into business processes, creating value-added accounts and fostering a more interconnected financial ecosystem.”

What’s more, with payments forming the backbone of global commerce and the digital economy, the anticipated rise in embedded payments investment, rapid innovation in payment technologies, and growing adoption of RTPs will create significant opportunities for players in the global payments ecosystem in 2025. Nevertheless, these advancements will also expose vulnerabilities that criminals may exploit to commit payments fraud.

Fortifying security control frameworks and addressing areas of exposure is essential to counter the surge in payments fraud. Alongside this, deploying AI to detect subtle patterns and complex fraudulent activities will enable corporate treasury, as the steward of financial risk management, to curb the escalating risks of payments fraud.

To this end, regular engagement with CTMfile’s articles, interviews, industry roundups, videos on supply chain, treasury, and payments management, as well as episodes of the OpenTreasury Podcast over the coming 12 months, will help corporations and their treasury teams transform payments into a competitive advantage and unlock value that extends beyond payments.