Why Payment Economics Is the Missing Discipline in Enterprise Finance
Issue 2 | The Payment Economics Journal | November 24th, 2025
Payment Economics has yet to become a formalized discipline.
We are defining it now. This is Issue #2 of the journal, formalizing it in real time.
Every established discipline in finance began the same way: Someone recognized that a specific type of decision was being made repeatedly without a systematic framework, and that the lack of that framework was costing money.
Portfolio theory emerged when investors needed a structured way to think about risk and return across assets.
Behavioral economics emerged when researchers saw that human decision patterns were creating predictable, measurable inefficiencies.
Payment economics is emerging now because finance teams are making thousands of decisions about how to pay suppliers. These decisions directly impact financial returns, yet remain unrecognized as economic decisions.
Issue #1 established that payment operations can generate recurring financial return. Issue #2 introduces the framework that makes it measurable, shows the first proof point, and invites you to help formalize what comes next.
The Gap No One Owns
Finance already has well-defined disciplines for managing money:
Treasury optimizes internal liquidity, manages working capital, and oversees cash positioning.
Procurement negotiates supplier contracts, manages vendor relationships, and optimizes total cost of ownership.
AP operations processes invoices efficiently, maintains controls, and ensures timely execution.
Each function performs well within its domain.
But a crucial question falls between them:
How do we maximize the financial return generated by the act of paying itself?
Treasury manages cash position, but leaves transaction-level return generation unaddressed.
Procurement negotiates what you pay, but leaves how the payment method creates value unaddressed.
AP operations focuses on efficiency and control, with financial yield outside their measurement scope.
The question exists. The return exists. But no function owns optimizing it.
This is the gap that payment economics fills.
What Payment Economics Is
Payment economics is the study and optimization of financial returns generated by how companies pay suppliers. This is distinct from what they pay, when they pay, or why they pay.
It focuses on:
Method economics: Which payment rails generate return, which are neutral, and which create cost
Acceptance dynamics: Why suppliers accept or reject specific methods, and how to optimize method selection
Return optimization: How to systematically capture available financial value by matching the right payment method to the right supplier at the right time
Payment economics is distinct from adjacent disciplines:
Treasury management focuses on your cash. Payment economics focuses on how paying generates return.
Procurement strategy focuses on contract terms. Payment economics focuses on transaction-level value creation.
AP operations focuses on workflow. Payment economics focuses on financial outcomes.
These functions connect through a shared metric they currently leave unmeasured:
Payment Yield.
Payment Yield: The Core Metric
Payment Yield quantifies the financial return generated across all payment volume:
Payment Yield = (Financial Return Generated) ÷ (Total Payment Volume)
Operationally, this breaks into two component variables:
Payment Yield = CR × SA
This formula becomes the foundation of the discipline.
Where:
CR (Capital Return) = The blended percentage of direct financial return generated per dollar paid through yield-generating methods. This includes commercial card rebates, virtual card rebates, dynamic discounting returns, early payment discount capture, and payment float benefits. Any measurable financial return created by payment method selection counts toward CR.
SA (Supplier Acceptance) = The percentage of payment volume flowing through yield-generating methods.
This formula reveals something decisive:
Most companies optimize CR. Almost none measure or optimize SA.
And SA is often the more powerful lever.
Why This Matters
Consider two companies that each pay $100M annually:
Company A
CR: 1.5%
SA: 10%
Payment Yield: 0.15%
Annual return: $150,000
Company B
CR: 1.2%
SA: 60%
Payment Yield: 0.72%
Annual return: $720,000
Company B generates nearly 5x more financial return despite a lower nominal return rate.
Same suppliers. Same spend. Same payment programs.
The difference is how intelligently they route payments.
The First Proof Point
A mid-market manufacturer processing $85M in annual payments assumed their payment returns were fully optimized. Their AP team was efficient. Their Treasury function was sophisticated. Their rebate program was established.
When they finally measured what percentage of payments actually flowed through yield-generating methods, they discovered the answer was 9%.
Their Payment Yield (the financial return generated per dollar paid) was 0.13%, or $107K annually.
After implementing payment infrastructure that captured supplier acceptance behavior and recommended optimal methods, they improved that figure to 53% of volume through yield-generating methods.
Payment Yield rose to 0.74%. Annual return increased to $629K.
The $522K gain required:
No changes to payment program rates
No contract renegotiations
No additional headcount
It came entirely from recognizing that payment method decisions are economic decisions.
We have this one proof point, the framework, and sound math. We're still building the library of case studies.
That's how new disciplines start.
The Scale of the Opportunity
Industry research shows that U.S. companies process roughly $35 trillion in B2B payments annually, with small and medium-sized businesses accounting for almost half of this market. Most organizations achieve Payment Yield between 0.05% and 0.3%, averaging around 0.175%.
The math suggests significantly more is possible:
With 65% of B2B payment volume eligible for yield-generating methods at an average 1.5% blended return rate, the mathematical ceiling is 0.975% Payment Yield (65% × 1.5%).
A 1% Payment Yield target reflects capturing the majority of available value.
Current state (0.175% PY): $35T × 0.175% = $61B captured
Future state (1% PY): $35T × 1% = $350B captured
Opportunity: $289B annually in the U.S. alone.
That $289B represents real value distributed across every company processing B2B payments. Your share of it is sitting in your AP data right now, unmeasured:
$100M annual payments → $825K annual opportunity
$500M → $4.1M
$1B → $8.25M
This represents measurable, recurring financial return going uncaptured because companies leave Payment Yield unmeasured and unoptimized.
Why Payment Economics Didn't Exist Until Now
Three structural constraints prevented its emergence:
Payments were treated as administrative rather than economic. The decision about how to pay was seen as operational rather than financial.
The data existed but remained invisible. Finance leaders could see total rebates but lacked visibility into supplier acceptance rates by method.
Payment-level financial outcomes had no owner. The question fell between Treasury, Procurement, and AP.
Without visibility and ownership, optimization was impossible.
What Changed
Three developments made payment economics both possible and necessary:
1. Multiple payment rails now generate measurable recurring return.
Research confirms that virtual cards will be the fastest-growing B2B payment channel over the next five years, with a 370% increase in transaction value. Virtual cards, commercial card programs, and integrated payables solutions have matured to the point where 60-70% of B2B payment volume can generate 1.5-2% direct financial return. Method selection shifted from operational preference to economic decision.
2. Modern payment infrastructure emerged.
Platforms now capture real-time supplier acceptance behavior, reveal optimal payment method selection patterns, and recommend methods that maximize return. What was invisible became measurable. What was manual became scalable.
This infrastructure typically integrates with existing AP systems via API and tracks three critical data points: which payment methods were offered to which suppliers, which methods were accepted or declined, and why. If your current AP platform cannot answer "what percentage of our suppliers accepted virtual card when offered?" you're operating blind. Modern infrastructure makes that visible.
Critically, modern methods settle to suppliers in 1-3 days, faster than checks or standard ACH. This means suppliers benefit from improved cash flow while buyers capture financial returns. The incentives aligned.
3. API-enabled payment networks removed technical barriers.
Suppliers can now accept yield-generating payment methods without changing their AR systems, banks, or processes. The "we can't accept that method" objection largely disappeared.
These three shifts happened simultaneously.
The result: Payment method selection became an economic lever that finance could (and should) actively manage.
Payment economics became possible when the infrastructure made it measurable. It became necessary when the dollars involved became too material to ignore.
The Core Problem
Most companies track total rebates. Almost none separate CR from SA.
Without that separation, critical questions go unanswered:
Did returns grow because CR improved, SA improved, or spend increased?
Are returns flat because we're optimized or because SA is stalled?
Which suppliers are capable of accepting yield-generating methods but currently receive checks?
You can only optimize what you measure separately.
What This Means for Finance Functions
Industry analysis confirms that AP departments are transforming from back-office functions to strategic engines driving organizational success. The adoption of innovative technologies is both the cause and the anticipated outcome of this shift.
CFOs recognize that payments generate measurable return beyond cost management.
Treasury uses supplier acceptance patterns to improve liquidity forecasting and working capital strategy.
Procurement incorporates payment method flexibility into supplier negotiations.
AP manages Payment Yield as a core performance metric.
FP&A includes Payment Yield in planning and performance tracking.
The discipline emerges when each function recognizes it influences the same economic outcome.
Where We Are Now
Payment economics as a formalized discipline is emerging rather than established.
We are still building:
Standardized benchmarks across industries
A certification program for Payment Portfolio Managers
Consensus on best practices for every scenario
50 case studies proving repeatability
What we do have:
A sound framework (CR × SA)
Clear math showing the opportunity
One proof point demonstrating it works
Infrastructure that makes it measurable
That's enough to begin.
Every discipline in finance started exactly this way: with a framework, early proof, and practitioners willing to formalize what works.
The companies that formalize payment economics first will capture more value and define how the discipline evolves. They'll set the benchmarks others follow. They'll build competitive advantage while others debate whether this matters. Early movers shape disciplines. Late movers follow playbooks written by someone else.
What You Can Do This Week
If you want to measure Payment Yield:
Calculate total financial return from payments (rebates, discounts captured, float benefits)
Divide by total payment volume (that's your current Payment Yield)
Determine what percentage of volume flows through yield-generating methods (that's your SA)
Calculate CR (total return ÷ yield-generating volume)
You now have your baseline: CR × SA = Payment Yield
If you want to improve Payment Yield:
Ask three questions:
Which suppliers are capable of accepting yield-generating methods but currently receive checks or ACH?
Why do those payments route through other methods instead of yield-generating ones?
Who decides which payment method each supplier receives, and is that decision intentional or default?
Most companies will discover SA is far lower than they assumed.
If you want to help formalize this discipline:
You're early. That's the advantage.
The companies that formalize payment economics first will define how it's practiced. They'll set the benchmarks. They'll build the best practices. They'll develop competitive advantage while others are still debating whether this matters.
We're working with a small group of finance leaders to formalize payment economics as a discipline. If that interests you, the conversation starts with measuring your current Payment Yield.
Why This Journal Exists
Issue #1 showed that payments generate recurring financial return.
Issue #2 introduces the framework that makes it measurable and invites you to define what comes next.
Future issues will explore:
How to systematically improve SA
The Payment Portfolio Manager role
How payment timing creates strategic value
How payment behavior reveals market intelligence
Benchmarks as they emerge
We're building this in public. You're watching a discipline get formalized in real time.
The Bottom Line
Payment economics is a distinct discipline focused on one question:
How do we maximize the financial return generated by the act of paying through intelligent method selection?
The formula is simple: Payment Yield = CR × SA
The opportunity is significant: Most companies optimize CR while SA remains unmeasured, leaving 60-80% of potential returns unrealized.
The discipline is emerging rather than established. The framework is sound. The math works. The first proof point validates it.
The question is whether you'll help define it or wait until it's consensus.
If you are measuring Payment Yield this week, you're early.
That's exactly where you want to be.
Platforms Applying Payment Economics
AP Copilot: Virtual card platform maximizing supplier acceptance and cashback.
Learn more: apcopilot.com
About The Payment Economics Journal
The Payment Economics Journal is published by Clear Paths Growth to formalize the discipline of treating payments as economic assets rather than administrative overhead.
The frameworks and metrics presented in this journal emerged from observing leading practitioners who were generating measurable financial performance from payment operations before the discipline existed to explain it.
Media inquiries: advisory@clearpathsgrowth.com
Suggested Citation
Jasinski, D. (2025). Why Payment Economics Is the Missing Discipline in Enterprise Finance. The Payment Economics Journal, Issue 2. Clear Paths Growth.
Authorship & Intellectual Property
Payment Yield and the Payment Yield Model were originally defined by Daniel Jasinski and published by Clear Paths Growth in The Payment Economics Journal (November 2025).
All models, frameworks, and definitions presented herein are the intellectual property of Clear Paths Growth LLC. Brief quotations are permitted with proper attribution. Commercial reuse or derivative implementation requires written permission.
© 2025 Clear Paths Growth LLC. All rights reserved.
References
eMarketer. (2024, February). US B2B Payments Forecast 2024. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-b2b-payments-forecast-2024
Juniper Research. (n.d.). B2B Payments to Hit $224 Trillion by 2030 Globally, Driven by Emerging Market Expansion. Retrieved from https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/b2b-payments-to-hit-224-trillion-by-2030-globally-driven-by-emerging-market-expansion
PYMNTS. (2025, January). From Back Office to Strategic Powerhouse: AP's Transformation in 2025. Retrieved from https://www.pymnts.com/tracker_posts/from-back-office-to-strategic-powerhouse-aps-transformation-in-2025