Steps Towards A High-Value Opportunity and US$220 Billion in Fee Income
Corporate B2B payment flows will more than double to 2030,[1] while the proportion of those payments run on instant rails is set to grow by a third. Despite progress, significant obstacles remain for those looking to deliver secure, convenient real-time payments for businesses across borders.
In July this year, we wrote about the huge global opportunity in real-time payments (RTP). Within this, business-to-business (B2B) payments – which at US$ 80T are around twice the size of the consumer payments market by value[2] – are the segment in which early movers are likely to gain most advantage.
That’s because around four in ten B2B transactions worldwide are still made using cash or check, and a similar amount rely on outdated wire transfers.[3] Developing economies and verticals such as agriculture, SME retail, and construction have the highest incidence of outdated payment tools. As a growing proportion of business payments go digital, RTPs as a payment method are predicted to treble in value terms by 2030.[4] The combination of these two dynamics – ongoing digitalization of B2B payments as a whole, and the rise of RTP as a payment method – creates a huge opportunity for companies that can solve some of the challenges associated with B2B faster payments across borders.
Specific Challenges for B2B Faster Payments
Our earlier work on the global RTP opportunity outlined some of the challenges with existing correspondent banking models. These include the wide range of counterparties involved in these models, from ForEx specialists through to third-party payment service providers and more, high and unpredictable costs, fluctuating currency valuations in some regions, slow settlement times, and the complexity involved in respecting wide-ranging regulatory variations between markets. We also noted the challenge of differing data formats and messaging standards.
The good news is that a wide range of solutions – from the introduction of the ISO20022 data standard, through to new cross-border RTP networks such as Europe’s SEPA-Inst or Asia’s Nexus – are emerging to solve some of these challenges. Furthermore, there’s evidence of growing regulatory alignment between markets and regions which should also help.
All of that said, there are specific challenges relating to RTP for business which will need to be addressed. These include ensuring that players in the RTP space can cope with the huge increase in volume that cross-border RTP for business will represent. As noted above, the B2B payments market is at least twice the size of the consumer payments market by value. Furthermore, as more SMEs and micro-businesses use digital payments – it’s estimated that the number of merchants using electronic payments will grow by 30% over the next half-decade[5] – firms offering RTP for business are going to experience a vast increase in demand on their processing networks.
Closely linked to this challenge is the issue of sufficient liquidity to process transactions rapidly and ensure smooth settlement of funds. This will prove especially challenging in so-called “exotic”, or less frequently traded currencies. As RTP volumes continue to grow and expectations of faster settlement continue to grow, this problem is likely to grow more acute.
Lastly, screening payments to protect all parties against fraud and abuse by money-launderers or Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) is no less of a challenge in the B2B space than in consumer payments. While the advent of the ISO20022 data standard and more regulatory convergence will help, we note that there are still significant differences between markets in terms of what’s expected in Anti-Money Laundering, fraud protection and PEP screening. As demand from businesses for RTP across borders grows, we expect this challenge to become more pressing.
While moves are afoot to facilitate growth in cross-border RTPs for business using rails like those employed in consumer transactions, the specific challenges outlined above require solving before we can start to talk about global, real-time B2B payments as a reality for all. The implications are that we’ll see further regulatory convergence in the years ahead, better access to processing capacity to cope with higher volumes, plus access to greater pools of liquidity, especially for emerging market currency pairs. Those first to solve these issues could earn a significant portion of fee income that’s set to grow by 43% over the next five years to hit US$220 billion.[6]
KoreFusion optimizes SMB payments strategy across 80 countries. We help banks, brands, and fintechs develop embedded payment and financial services for SMBs. For more information, please reach out to hello@korefusion.com!
[1] Fortune Business Insights, 31 March 2025: “Global B2B payments market”: SME
[2] Payments, Cards & Mobile, 14 March 2025: “Global Payments Report Tracks a Decade of Transformation”: https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/global-payments-report-tracks-a-decade-of-transformation/
[3] Getbalance.com, “B2B Payment Statistics”: https://www.getbalance.com/post/the-ultimate-list-of-b2b-payment-statistics
[4] Mastercard, October 2024: “What’s Next For Real-Time Payments?”: https://b2b.mastercard.com/media/4pynbsja/whats-next-for-real-time-paymentspdf.pdf
[5] See The Digital and Card Payment Yearbooks, 2023-2024 at www.paymentyearbooks.com
[6] Convera, “Cross-border payment revenues to hit $280bn by 2030”: https://convera.com/blog/payments/cross-border-payment-revenues-to-reach-280-billion-by-2030/ Figure quoted is for B2B fee income only.