Originally published by Mastercard
By Mike Kresse
Executive Vice President, Commercial and New Payment Flows, North America, Mastercard
The last time one of my daughters had to write a check, she had no idea where to get one.
She’s in her twenties. Smart, capable, digitally fluent — and largely unfamiliar with a payment method that still moves trillions of dollars between businesses every year. When she needed to pay a deposit, she didn’t ask how to write the check. She asked why she had to.
Consumer payments have evolved dramatically over the past two decades. Millennials have been banking online for most of their adult lives. Gen Z came of age with contactless payments; Gen Alpha was born into a world with digital wallets. But much of the commercial payments world is still operating on processes my kids have never used and don’t expect to: purchase orders, invoices and checks, all on paper, in spreadsheets, and handed along from desk to desk.
As a 25-year veteran of the payments industry, I’ve seen just how far money movement has come. I’ve also seen where it hasn’t. I’ve learned that real change doesn’t happen just because technology exists. It happens when expectations shift. That shift is underway now, driven by the next generation of workers — one of whom may be your CFO one day.
Why commercial payments have been slow to modernize
The reality is that commercial payments didn’t fall behind overnight or by design. They evolved under very different conditions. B2B transactions tend to be larger, more complex and more fragmented. They often involve multiple systems, approval layers, legacy ERP platforms and long-standing supplier relationships. In many organizations, paper checks became deeply embedded because they “worked” — and once a process works, it tends to stick.
While some industries have moved past paper, others have invested heavily over decades in workflows designed around paper. Automating those workflows felt easier than rethinking them entirely. So instead of digitizing the payment itself, many organizations simply automated the workflow around the paper.
Inertia — that’s what we hear over and over again when we speak with small business owners and large-company finance departments of all ages and across industries about their organization’s approach to checks. One older man who works in the restaurant industry admitted that “digital payments tend to get lost with me” and described his system like this: “Purveyors come in, they hand me the bill, a month later I take them all out, they come home with me, I sit down with a calculator, I add them all up, write the check.”
Meanwhile, a young woman in wholesale said, “Our business is run by the older generation, and their preference is to always pay by check.” She then noted that a spate of coming retirements may trigger change.
This inertia has created a system that is functional but fragile and increasingly out of step with how businesses operate today. And it raises real risk.
Checks remain one of the most fraud-prone B2B payment methods. They lack real-time visibility, are difficult to track from end to end and provide limited controls once they leave an organization’s hands. And despite the availability of digital alternatives, checks still account for trillions of dollars in invoice payments each year.
Manual processes also limit control. When data is delayed, disconnected or incomplete, finance teams lose the ability to see what’s happening across the payment life cycle — from invoice to approval to settlement. That makes it harder to manage cash flow, enforce policies and prevent fraud.
Bringing consumer-grade experiences into commercial payments
The same principles that transformed consumer payments — speed, simplicity, trust and intelligence — apply just as powerfully to commercial flows. That means extending one-click experiences into areas like procurement, accounts payable, supplier payments, business travel and disbursements.
Increasingly, that shift is being powered by embedded finance. Payments are no longer a separate workflow that happens after the work is done. They are a native part of how businesses buy, sell and manage cash flow. When payments are embedded directly into ERP systems or procurement or expense platforms, they happen in context, with fewer handoffs and less friction. For a generation that has never known a world of pop-up windows and manual workarounds, this feels natural. For businesses, it means faster execution, better data and tighter control.
Moving away from paper enables powerful new capabilities. Virtual cards, for example, enable real-time data for tracking and traceability, along with customizable spend limits for more control by the organization. That removes friction and reduces fraud risk while improving visibility and compliance.
And the consumer payments revolution hasn’t ended. Security capabilities continue to advance, including the emergence of tokenized credentials that can be used for commerce at scale. As those innovations mature, they won’t stay confined to consumer use cases. They’ll increasingly define what businesses expect from commercial payments — from stronger security to smarter data and more seamless experiences, end to end.
How younger workers can drive change
Gen Z employees aren’t just questioning legacy processes — they’re demonstrating alternatives. They’re fluent in digital tools. They expect embedded experiences. And they’re far less tolerant of manual workarounds that slow them down. Yes, the same can be said of millennials. But what’s different now is that modern solutions don’t require massive upfront investment or time-consuming implementation.
As a Gen Xer, I remember when software took four to 12 months to deploy on-premise. Those days are gone. Now we just download an app and we’re off to the races. Digital commercial payment tools can be deployed quickly, integrated seamlessly and proven with real data.
When younger workers can show that digitization improves speed, security and control, not just convenience, it changes the conversation. Modernization stops being a “nice to have” and becomes a competitive necessity.
Gen Z is entering the workforce at a moment when the technology and the urgency finally align. As expectations collide with capability, commercial payments are poised to catch up to the digital world in which they already live.
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