Before the pandemic, digital payments were mostly in the background. They were seen as operational rather than strategic, and B2B gave them middling investment. Even now, they often sit lower on the priority list than fraud prevention, customer experience, revenue generation, or analytics.
Yet, when payments fail, whether it’s a missed supplier payment, delayed payroll, or fraud, organizations feel the impact immediately. Reputations suffer, regulators take a dim view, and operations feel the strain.
This contradiction between historically low visibility and costly consequences is the essence of something we’re calling “the payments paradox”. It’s harder to ignore as complexity and risk continue to grow across businesses and the payments ecosystem.
Where the Paradox Shows Up
Payments seem routine because workflows look standardized, at least internally. But beneath the surface, it’s a tangle of dependencies: banking connections, ERP APIs, supplier data, security controls, and compliance requirements. A small failure anywhere and at any point can create a domino effect. In 2025, the financial sector witnessed several large-scale payments outages that disrupted millions, proof that what looks routine can quickly become critical.
The real impact of payment failures becomes clear when you look at what happens across different sectors. A delayed (or waylaid) care payment can jeopardize support for vulnerable populations. A missed technology invoice can disrupt clinical operations. Even a minor error in a utility company’s payments can ripple across its entire supply chain. It’s clear that treating payments like a basic back-office task is a mistake because they’re a central foundation for driving trust in business.
The paradox becomes even clearer when you look at the growing complexity of payment environments. Healthcare now manages monthly tech subscriptions, while utilities and telcos coordinate thousands of suppliers with varied billing patterns. Charities face added scrutiny over payment transparency, and government over politically sensitive payments tied to housing, care, and community welfare. As complexity grows, so the stakes rise, another reason payments deserve more than a passing glance.
Layered into this complexity is a fast-moving risk landscape. Cybercriminals now use AI to create convincing deep-fake attacks, which are alarmingly convincing. And expensive too. Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud, business email compromise (BEC), and vendor impersonation are already sophisticated, often targeting those that rely on manual processes with little visibility. The very systems expected to run quietly in the background, are now among the most vulnerable.
Finance teams are feeling the pressure too. They’re expected to process more transactions, meet tighter deadlines, and support wider goals while headcounts and budgets shrink. Manual entry, spreadsheets, and legacy approvals slow down work and increase the chance of manual errors. And while teams recognize the need for automation, many are left feeling unsure which technologies, including AI, are credible or ERP-compatible.
While digital transformation is underway, progress varies widely. Some organizations deploy integrated payment automation and fraud analytics, while others stay tied to legacy systems. Integrating ERPs like SAP and Oracle, which sit at the core of financial operations, with modern payment technology requiring expertise that many might lack. And AI adds yet another layer of complexity, with leaders wary of inflated claims and unclear value.
The good news is that technology credibility and capability can go hand in hand. And that’s where the real progress begins.
Turning the Paradox into Progress
Organizations can resolve the payments paradox by reframing payments as strategic infrastructure, not administrative overhead. Payments automation minimizes errors and accelerates payment cycles. Visibility tools predict issues before they escalate. And integrated fraud prevention now adapts to emerging threats instead of reacting after the fact.
These improvements don’t replace ERPs. Rather, it strengthens them. What enables this shift is partnership: collaborating with trusted payment service providers that understand sector-specific pressures and deliver solutions for real-world environments.
Bottomline describes this evolution as moving from ‘trusted payments’ to ‘trusted partnership’, reflecting the need for consistent performance, deeper collaboration, and resilient infrastructure.
As B2B payments become more reliable and transparent, organizations earn trust from customers, suppliers, donors, regulators, and communities alike.
If the payments paradox is evident in your organization, it’s time to assess the issue proactively. Reviewing sector insights, evaluating best-practice resources, or scheduling a consultation with your payments provider can clarify where improvements will have the greatest impact.
Taking that first step matters because complexity and risk will keep growing, but so will the opportunities to get payments right. Organizations that act now can turn the paradox into an advantage by building systems that are secure, efficient, and ready for what’s next. With the right partners and technology, payments can move from being a hidden risk to a source of confidence and progress.