Payment A new standard for measuring the economic return of B2B payments.
Payment Economics gives finance leadership a standard way to measure Payment Yield across rebates, terms, float, supplier acceptance, and capital timing.
Payment Yield expresses the return created by B2B payment decisions in basis points of addressable spend, giving the Office of the CFO a common metric for governing payment performance.
$289 billion in unrealized Payment Yield moves through U.S. enterprises every year.
The Payment Economics Institute exists to close it.
U.S. businesses process $28.9 trillion in B2B payment volume annually. The spread between typical Payment Yield and optimized Payment Yield runs roughly one percentage point of addressable spend. One percent of $28.9 trillion is $289 billion in return that exists, is available to capture, and disappears because no function owns the economic outcome of payment decisions.
The gap closes one firm at a time. The Institute publishes the measurement standard, installs the Payment Yield line at the firm level, and runs the activation moves across AP, Treasury, and Procurement that bring captured return onto the financial statement beside the existing cost-side measurements.
See How the Institute WorksPayment Economics organizes B2B payment performance into a single economic system.
AP determines execution. Procurement shapes supplier economics. Treasury manages liquidity, timing, float, and cost of capital. Each function controls a different lever. Payment Economics measures the combined return those levers produce across the payment portfolio.
The core metric is Payment Yield:
Capital Return measures the blended rate of return created by the payment structure. It includes rebate economics, early payment discounts, dynamic discounting, float, payment timing, cost-of-capital advantage, and capital access.
Supplier Acceptance measures the share of addressable spend that participates in the structure and captures the available return. The relationship between return rate and supplier participation determines the realized yield.
Payment Yield is expressed in basis points of addressable spend and translated into dollars. Basis points make payment performance comparable across supplier categories, business units, payment methods, industries, and time periods. Dollars make the result usable in finance leadership's operating review.
Payment Yield develops across four tiers.
Payment Method Return
The direct return created by payment method selection, including virtual card rebates, ACH optimization, check reduction, early payment discounts, and dynamic discounting. Tier 1 measures the economics closest to the payment event.
Capital Activation
The incremental return created when payment data, invoice timing, supplier behavior, and buyer credit quality activate working capital products. This includes supply chain finance, receivables finance, embedded lending, early-pay programs, and other capital structures connected to the payment flow.
Treasury Positioning
The structural return created through payment timing, liquidity management, payment hubs, netting arrangements, cross-border optimization, funding-cost decisions, and cash conversion strategy. Tier 3 measures how Treasury's control of capital movement changes payment economics.
Network Yield
The compounding return created when buyers, suppliers, platforms, and capital providers operate from a shared measurement standard. As Payment Yield data accumulates across transactions, supplier segments, industries, and platforms, the network becomes more precise at identifying which payment structures create the strongest economic return for each participant.
Three engagements for measuring Payment Yield and closing the gap to benchmark.
Payment Economics Diagnostic
Complete Payment Yield measurement, gap analysis against benchmark, and twelve-month improvement roadmap, delivered as a fixed-fee engagement over thirty to forty-five days.
Learn moreAdvisory Retainer
Ongoing Payment Yield advisory with monthly working sessions, asynchronous access between sessions, and quarterly PEI tracking against baseline. Three-month minimum engagement.
See detailsYield Partnership
Advisory compensation scales with the incremental Payment Yield your organization captures against a measured baseline. The firm earns when the client earns.
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The platform expresses all four tiers of Payment Yield: direct method return, capital activation, treasury positioning, and Network Yield. Its 50% Supplier Acceptance rate provides a visible reference point inside the model, while the platform's broader significance lies in its ability to convert payment execution, supplier participation, and data intelligence into a measurable economic outcome.