New Technologies enabling UK B2B Payments acceleration

The short answer

UK business payments are getting faster and safer through Faster Payments, open banking, commercial variable recurring payments (launched June 2026), near-universal Confirmation of Payee and a new law capping payment terms at 60 days. The rails are ready. What slows most B2B payments now is the paperwork before them: invoices waiting to be checked, approved and matched.

How fast can a UK business payment be?

Seconds, on the right rail.

Source: Pay.UK Annual Statistics 2025. Faster Payments keeps growing: August 2026 saw 458.5m payments worth £400.8bn, while Bacs volume fell 2.7% year on year.

Which technologies are speeding up B2B payments?

Open banking

Open banking lets authorised apps initiate payments directly from a bank account. It passed one billion payments in 2026, with 40.16m payments in June 2026 alone.

Commercial variable recurring payments (cVRP)

VRPs let a business set up a mandate for payments of varying amounts, within limits, without a new authorisation each time. The UK Payments Initiative’s commercial VRP scheme launched on 2 June 2026, starting with utilities, financial services and government payments. It is the first serious account-to-account alternative to Direct Debit and cards for recurring bills.

Confirmation of Payee

Confirmation of Payee checks the account name matches before money leaves. It covers around 99% of Faster Payments, with more than 320 organisations offering checks. For businesses, it is a first line of defence against invoice and mandate fraud.

Richer payment data (ISO 20022)

CHAPS moved to the ISO 20022 messaging standard in 2023. From November 2026, payments with fully unstructured addresses will be rejected, and the Bank of England has proposed structured remittance data on all payments from November 2027. More data travelling with each payment means easier matching to invoices.

Stablecoins and tokenised money

The Bank of England consulted in November 2025 on regulating systemic sterling stablecoins, including proposed holding limits of £10m for businesses. Final rules are due by the end of 2026. Interesting for the future, not for this year’s supplier run.

What is changing in UK late payment law?

The Commercial Payments Bill, introduced in May 2026, is the biggest shake-up in more than 25 years (DBT):

• 60-day maximum payment terms between businesses.
• Statutory interest at 8% above Bank Rate on late payments.
• New powers for the Small Business Commissioner to investigate, adjudicate and enforce.
• Board-level reporting for persistent late payers.
• A ban on construction retentions, with timing to be consulted on.

The government puts the cost of late payment at £11bn a year, linked to 38 business closures every day. The bill was progressing through the House of Lords in autumn 2026; Commons stages and Royal Assent were still to come, with measures applying after a lead-in period.

Is paying faster riskier?

It can be, which is why protections have grown alongside speed.

Since October 2024, payment firms must reimburse victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud up to £85,000. Over the first 18 months, 88% of money lost and claimed was returned, some £316m. But UK Finance still recorded £41.3m of invoice and mandate fraud in 2025, 68% of it on business accounts. The reimbursement scheme is built for consumers, micro-enterprises and small charities, not larger businesses paying suppliers, so checking before you pay still matters.

What is the real bottleneck in B2B payments?

The invoice, not the payment.

A Faster Payment takes seconds. Getting an invoice to the point where someone is happy to pay it takes far longer. Ardent Partners found typical AP teams take 13.5 days from receipt to approval, against 2.9 days for the best. With a 60-day legal maximum coming, slow approval becomes a compliance risk, not just an inconvenience.

Key trends

• Account-to-account payments are going mainstream. The government’s Payments Vision Delivery Committee has made account-to-account payments a top priority for future payments infrastructure.
• Regulation is consolidating. The Payments Forward Plan sets out Faster Payments and Bacs enhancements by end-2026, new open banking rules and the merger of the Payment Systems Regulator into the FCA.
• Payment terms are tightening by law. The 60-day cap will push large buyers to speed up approvals.
• E-invoicing will join the dots. Structured invoices from 2029 plus richer payment data will make automatic matching the norm.
• Fraud prevention is moving upstream. Bank detail verification and anomaly detection before payment, not just recovery after.

How should you speed up your supplier payments?

1. Get invoices approved within days, not weeks, by routing them automatically.
2. Verify supplier bank details independently before the first payment and after any change.
3. Use Confirmation of Payee on every new payee.
4. Schedule payment runs against a clear view of what is due in the next 30 days.
5. Reconcile bank transactions to invoices automatically, so nothing is paid twice.
6. Review your payment terms ahead of the 60-day cap.

Where OmniPATH fits

OmniPATH removes the bottleneck before payment. Invoices are read, checked and routed for approval as they arrive, so they are ready to pay in days. Changed bank details and duplicate invoices are flagged before money moves. You always know what cash you need for the next 30 days, and bank reconciliation matches payments to invoices automatically.

Related reading

• e-Invoicing mandates across the UK & Europe: the ideal vs. the reality
• The Silent Profit Drain
• AP automation

FAQ

What is the fastest way to make a B2B payment in the UK?

Faster Payments settles near-instantly and is used for most business transfers. CHAPS is used for high-value, same-day payments. Bacs, including Direct Debit, takes three working days.

What is commercial VRP?

Commercial variable recurring payments let a business collect payments of varying amounts from a customer’s bank account under a single mandate. The UK Payments Initiative scheme launched on 2 June 2026, starting with utilities, financial services and government payments.

What is Confirmation of Payee?

Confirmation of Payee checks that the name on an account matches the name the payer entered before a payment is made. It covers around 99% of Faster Payments in the UK and helps prevent misdirected and fraudulent payments.

What is the new UK late payment law?

The Commercial Payments Bill, introduced in May 2026, would cap business payment terms at 60 days, set statutory late payment interest at 8% above Bank Rate and give the Small Business Commissioner new enforcement powers. It was still passing through Parliament in October 2026.

Are businesses reimbursed for APP fraud?

The mandatory reimbursement scheme in force since October 2024 covers authorised push payment fraud up to £85,000 per claim for consumers, micro-enterprises and small charities. Larger businesses are not covered, so verifying supplier bank details before paying is essential.

Why are B2B payments still slow if payment rails are instant?

Because the delay is usually in approving the invoice, not moving the money. Ardent Partners found typical AP teams take 13.5 days from receipt to approval, against 2.9 days for best-in-class teams.

Sources

• Pay.UK – Annual Statistics 2025 (PDF) and August 2026 statistics (PDF)
• Open Banking Ltd – one billion payments
• FCA – UK Payments Initiative scheme launch
• PSR – Confirmation of Payee compliance report
• PSR – APP scams reimbursement dashboard
• Bank of England – ISO 20022 enhanced data in CHAPS
• Bank of England – systemic stablecoins consultation
• DBT – Commercial Payments Bill overview
• GOV.UK – late payment package, July 2025
• GOV.UK – strategy for future retail payments infrastructure
• HM Treasury – Payments Forward Plan
• UK Finance – Annual Fraud Report 2026
• Ardent Partners – State of ePayables 2025 (PDF)