Innovative platforms transforming business payments solutions

From tech giants to supply chain platforms, the B2B payment landscape is being redrawn.

The world of B2B payments—long the stronghold of banks and legacy systems—is being transformed by a surprising wave of new entrants. Tech platforms, logistics players, and fintechs innovations are rewriting the rules of how companies transact, finance, and manage working capital. What used to be a back-office, bank-driven function is now embedded into digital ecosystems, supply chains, and marketplaces.

This decentralization is not just a story of disruption; it’s a shift in power. Whoever controls the platform where business is conducted increasingly controls the payment flow that follows.

Big tech enters corporate finance through the side door

Amazon, Shopify and Apple are no longer just consumer brands—they’re building infrastructure that touches the core of B2B financial operations.

Amazon, via its Amazon Business platform (which topped $35 billion in annualized sales in 2023, Digital Commerce), is more than a procurement marketplace. It offers dynamic pricing, invoice management, and embedded lending through Amazon Lending, which has issued over $5 billion (Nasdaq) in working capital loans to sellers. Amazon is effectively becoming a financial partner to SMBs operating on its platform.

Shopify has advanced over $5 billion in merchant cash advances since 2016, with no credit checks and automatic repayment via daily sales—enabling merchants to fund inventory, marketing, or growth without traditional bank loans.

Launched March 28, 2023, Apple Pay Later lets users split eligible purchases into four interest-free payments over six weeks, all managed seamlessly inside Wallet. By handling credit checks, loan tracking, and repayment schedules in-app, Apple has built robust buy now pay later BNPL mechanics on its platform that could one day power similar workflows for business clients.

In short, Big Tech is moving into B2B finance not by building banks, but by building platforms—offering seamless UX, data-rich environments, and embedded financial services as part of the digital business experience.

Procurement and logistics platforms are becoming payment innovators

Supply chain and procurement platforms weren’t designed to handle payments—but they’re increasingly the best-placed to do so.

Coupa and SAP, leaders in spend management, have both integrated payment orchestration tools and early payment financing. Their platforms hold valuable procurement data—delivery schedules, supplier performance, invoice approvals—making them uniquely equipped to offer embedded finance, such as dynamic discounting or just-in-time payment release.

Then there’s Tradeshift, which blends invoicing, procurement, and supply chain financing into one interface. By connecting buyers, suppliers, and funders on a single network, Tradeshift turns procurement operations into a real-time cash flow management engine. Its partnership with HSBC and Santander also signals a new model: banks delivering capital within third-party platforms, rather than through proprietary interfaces.

These platforms are redefining the B2B payment experience by bringing financing directly into the tools businesses already use to operate—eliminating the gap between finance and function.

Why retail banks are losing ground

Despite decades of dominance, traditional banks are struggling to keep up with the pace of innovation in B2B payments.

Most banks still rely on fragmented rails (SWIFT, SEPA, ACH) that are slow, manual, and expensive. Their interfaces are not built for procurement teams or SMBs. They lack real-time visibility, integration capabilities, and the seamless workflows that fintechs and platforms now offer as standard.

Meanwhile, Innovative fintechs like Adyen, Airwallex, and Stripe have turned payments into programmable infrastructure. With APIs for multicurrency payouts, automated reconciliation, and embedded treasury services, these companies are replacing bank functions in software environments.

Adyen for Platforms, for example, offers a unified API that handles merchant onboarding, risk and compliance checks, settlement accounts, sub-merchant splits, and global payouts—all within a single integration. On top of payments, Adyen Capital lets platforms embed working-capital advances at a fixed fee, automatically repaid from transaction flows. In this model, Adyen’s infrastructure becomes both the rails—and the product.

Faced with this shift, some banks are opting to collaborate rather than compete. JP Morgan’s acquisition of Volkswagen’s payments platform and its investment in Taulia reflect this strategy: embedding into ecosystems rather than defending outdated portals.

The platform is the new payment gateway

What all these moves point to is a profound change: the decoupling of payments from banks, and their reattachment to platforms where business happens.

This “platformisation” of payments reshapes how finance teams operate:

• Instead of logging into a bank portal, payments happen inside ERP or procurement tools.

• Financing options are triggered by workflow data, not by manual requests.

• Payment timing becomes a lever for strategic cash flow management, not just an accounting step.

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References

• Deloitte (2023). Digital transformation in B2B payments.

• McKinsey & Company (2022). The new growth engine in B2B payments.

• Statista (2024). Amazon Business annual sales

• Reuters JPMorgan payments business.