B2b/page/4 news and trends

Mastercard CEO Says Stablecoins Solve Cross-Border Payment Delays

October 09, 2026
Mastercard
AI Agents Can Make Cross-Border Payments Faster, But Not Fix Why They Fail
Cross-border Payments // October 09, 2026

Moving money across borders may be one of the last steps in an international payment. Getting the money ready to move can take considerably longer. Before a multinational company pays an overseas supplier, its finance team often needs to verify the counterparty, reconcile an invoice...

Supply-Chain Data Moves Into SMB Underwriting
SMBs // October 08, 2026

Small businesses that sell physical goods generate records before the commercial activity is reflected in the financial accounts or converted into cash. Orders enter commerce systems. Inventory moves into and out of warehouses. Products are picked and packed. Shipments leave for customers. Each step produces...

Fed Data Shows Tariffs Drove Inflation in 2025
Economy // October 08, 2026

New research shows that the cost of many consumer goods would have declined last year if not for U.S. tariffs. The paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says the cost of 67 categories of goods was 2.9 percentage points higher as of February because of the...

Starbucks Weighs Takeover Bid for Slumping Chipotle
Business // October 08, 2026

Starbucks has worked with advisors on a takeover proposal for Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Financial Times reported Thursday (Oct. 8), citing unnamed sources. The status of the proposal and any submission of a formal offer to Chipotle could not be determined, according to the report....

Interviews & Exclusives
B2B Payments Already Have the Controls AI Agents Need

October 08, 2026
Watch more: How Payments Turn AI Into Action Every swipe, ACH transfer or virtual card transaction carries clues about who is spending, where money is moving, what is being bought and whether something looks wrong. Those clues have remained relatively untapped, and not for lack of enterprise effort. “The core problem is work happens in one […]

OFAC Warns Sanctions Risk Can Hide Deep in the Payment Chain

October 07, 2026
The next sanctions shock for a multinational may not arrive as the name of a supplier appearing on a government blacklist. It could arrive as a payment that suddenly stops...

Going Global Exposes Payments’ Weak Spots

October 05, 2026
Watch more: Need to Know With Spreedly’s Nick Daley Selling in another country can force a merchant to find out how much growth its payments infrastructure can actually support. New...

AI Could End Finance’s Point-and-Click Era

October 02, 2026
Watch more: What’s Next in Payments With Billtrust’s Dave Ruda The finance technology playbook was once relatively straightforward. CFOs built out their department tech stacks by putting one piece of...

Quick Reads
Mastercard CEO Says Stablecoins Solve Cross-Border Payment Delays

October 09, 2026
Cross-border payments are proving to be the strongest use case for stablecoins, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said Friday (Oct. 9), Bloomberg reported. During an interview with Bloomberg TV, Miebach said stablecoins provide an alternative to traditional methods of cross-border payments that take days and have unclear fees. “From a working capital perspective for a company, if you could move the […]

Fed Data Shows Tariffs Drove Inflation in 2025

October 08, 2026
New research shows that the cost of many consumer goods would have declined last year if not for U.S. tariffs. The paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says the cost of...

Starbucks Weighs Takeover Bid for Slumping Chipotle

October 08, 2026
Starbucks has worked with advisors on a takeover proposal for Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Financial Times reported Thursday (Oct. 8), citing unnamed sources. The status of the proposal and any...

Google Cloud Targets Enterprise Market With Universal Agent for Work

October 08, 2026
Google Cloud announced a universal artificial intelligence agent for work called Gemini agent that will be joined by industry-specific agents for financial services, legal, government, healthcare and retail, the company...