B2B Payments Have a $120 Trillion Generational Divide

The future of B2B payments is getting closer than it looks.

As young generations take on more influence in procurement and finance, the demand for intuitive, tech-forward experiences is beginning to accelerate. From virtual card acceptance to embedded accounts payable/accounts receivable (AP/AR) automation, the B2B payments space, worth an estimated $120 trillion annually, is being asked to evolve — or risk becoming irrelevant.

At the heart of the shift is a generational realignment that has placed a new kind of employee at the center of financial decision-making, one who grew up with Venmo, not vendor checks.

“B2B payments are complex, but that doesn’t mean they have to feel complex,” Zachary Held, head of product and commercialization at Boost Payment Solutions, told PYMNTS during a discussion for the May 2025 edition of the series “What’s Next in Payments: The Alphabet Strategy.”

The consumerization of financial services has reshaped everything from account onboarding to payment confirmation. Generation Z, in particular, arrives in the workforce having internalized those norms. So, when confronted with manual invoice processing, paper checks or finance systems that can’t communicate, the result isn’t just frustration. It could be alienation.

“There’s a fundamental misalignment between the expectations of the younger generation and the reality of how things happen in the workplace,” Held said. “There’s an interesting stat: 44% of Gen Zers don’t even know how to write a check. At the same time, one-third of B2B payments are still made via check. That misalignment is becoming more and more prevalent.”

The path forward isn’t necessarily about inventing the next revolutionary payment method. It’s about scaling what already works, modernizing what doesn’t and — most importantly — listening to the user, Held said.

From Consumer UX to Corporate Expectations

The growing gap between the experiences younger generations have come to expect and the incumbent realities of many business processes can impact everything from how accounts payable teams manage vendor relationships to how finance leaders plan for growth.

In many ways, it represents a systemic inefficiency that modern B2B players can no longer afford to embrace. This demographic inflection is about more than digital literacy — it’s about digital expectations. As companies scramble to meet those expectations, they’re discovering the deeper costs of legacy thinking.

Failing to evolve isn’t just inefficient. It’s a direct threat to talent retention, operational scalability and future growth, Held said.

At the strategic level, chief financial officers and finance leaders are rethinking the basic math of scaling their teams.

“The old equation was, ‘I have X number of invoices, so I need Y number of people,’” Held said. “Now it’s, ‘How do I make one plus one equal 10?’”

Instead of scaling through labor, companies are scaling through leverage; specifically, automation. The goal is to apply technology not to replace human judgment but to eliminate the repetitive, error-prone workflows that don’t require it.

“We at Boost always think about the office of the CFO,” Held said. “How do we create operating leverage within that function? That’s the North Star.”

Straight-Through Processing: The Supplier Side of the Coin

Part of the challenge is that solving one aspect of the payment lifecycle can often expose weaknesses elsewhere. Virtual cards are a good example. On the buyer side, they offer seamless, secure and trackable payments. But on the supplier side?

“You’re getting thousands of virtual cards a day,” Held said. “What do I do with them? How do I accept those in a very streamlined way? We’re aiming to enable companies to balance efficiency across the entire payment lifecycle.”

This is where straight-through processing becomes critical. Automating the supplier’s entire virtual card acceptance process is where Boost sees room for meaningful innovation, he said.

By reducing the overhead for AR teams, companies free up staff to shift focus to higher-value tasks — such as financial planning, strategic procurement and fraud prevention — rather than spending time keying in data.

When asked about technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain, Held struck a note of cautious optimism. He said APIs are already “widely accepted” across the industry. AI and blockchain, however, are still in early innings, especially where risk and compliance are concerned.

“We’re moving in a direction where these will be table stakes, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Internally, Boost has taken a two-pronged approach to stay ahead. It focuses as much on culture as it does on code. Held described it as “ears first” and “agile everywhere.”

“We’re constantly getting feedback from our customers, every single day,” he said. “Not once a year or once a quarter. It’s part of how we prioritize our roadmap.”

The second part? Applying agile thinking not just to development, but across sales, marketing and operations.

“Everyone talks about agile development,” Held said. “But we’re applying that same model across the entire organization — so we’re constantly evolving with the changing needs of our customers.”

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