Payments CEOs Say Uncertainty May Be the New Normal. But Getting Back to Business Takes Center Stage
It might seem like a good time to take a vacation.
With the news full of geopolitical tension, trade finance drama, shifting regulations and the fresh memory of a disruptive global health crisis, uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception.
But for most companies, vacations are not high on the agenda. Pressing pause on critical operations is simply not an option. Companies must continue paying suppliers and employees, upgrading infrastructures, and serving customers regardless of tariffs or looming regulatory frameworks.
That sentiment emerged in a conversation among PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Boost Payment Solutions CEO Dean Leavitt and Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards. Their discussion, inspired by installments of the PYMNTS Certainty Project explored not how consumers would navigate the current and short-term economic landscape, but how companies are going to navigate it. What strategies are best suited to thrive amid this uncertainty? From cross-border payment complexities to payment modernization, the dialogue offered a surprisingly optimistic outlook: While uncertainty may swirl, business continues, and opportunities are poised to take center stage.
Both Edwards and Leavitt have their hands in the behind-the-scenes, infrastructure-oriented business of payments. Ingo Payments focuses on powering money mobility ecosystems with new payments economics; Boost on payments automation and optimizing the use of commercial cards. In Leavitt’s case, the current situation calls for at least some degree of reexamination regarding cross-border activities.
“We are in 182 countries, so what we are seeing is some reticence for certain cross-border transactions,” Leavitt said. “Especially when it’s U.S. companies paying suppliers around the world, we’ve definitely seen a bit of a ‘wait-and-see’ approach just to see what’s going to shake out with the tariffs.”
For domestic operations, Edwards said the impact of geopolitical volatility has not yet dramatically affected his company’s core business, which focuses on account funding, turning payments into new accounts and ecosystems and real-time disbursements.
“It doesn’t impact me that much because we’re not a consumer-direct model,” Edwards said. “All the macro buying behaviors, because everybody’s scared, might cause the tide to fall a bit, but we haven’t seen that trickle down in a big way yet.”
However, Edwards pointed to corporate caution, particularly among technology companies.
“We are seeing some corporate reticence, preemptive layoffs that impact tech resources and product roadmaps,” he said.
Leavitt and Edwards both said that, despite cross-border headwinds or inflationary fears, doing business — what they define as business continuity — remains paramount. Enterprises know they must preserve their supplier ecosystems to remain competitive. This sometimes prompts them to accelerate digitization efforts precisely because adopting modern payment tools can mean strengthening partnerships.
Uncertainty and the C-Suite
Webster pointed out during the discussion that key drivers in uncertainty-proofing operations are the roles of the chief financial officer and treasurer. Today’s finance chiefs are not merely tasked with number crunching — they are viewed as strategists who can help the enterprise weather economic storms.
Forecasting and scenario-planning tools have grown more sophisticated. Edwards said that for his business partners, the heightened role of the treasurer spurs them to scrutinize the full gamut of payment and disbursement choices.
“It used to be an educational process just explaining what digitizing payments meant,” he said. “Now we see CFOs and treasurers wanting to optimize it. They want to know, ‘How can we make these processes even more economically attractive? How do we drive loyalty, create new revenue streams, or turn what has traditionally been a cost center into something else?’”
While neither Leavitt nor Edwards reported seeing a complete overhaul in how CFOs approach their daily responsibilities, both leaders confirmed that heightened interest in digital solutions with new business models is a notable trend. This lines up with the broader market imperative to remain agile and preserve working capital in uncertain times.
CFOs and treasurers also have their hand in risk and risk management. The full range of exposures in that area now includes more than the usual transaction fraud. Partners themselves could become liabilities if they lack deep capitalization or robust compliance frameworks. Regulatory scrutiny is also on the rise, particularly in the banking world and the evolving FinTech space.
How should CFOs and treasurers deal with risk and the threat of fraud? Edwards spelled out a multi-pronged approach.
“There’s fraud risk, which can be expensive and scary, and then there’s vendor risk,” he said. “Companies get in trouble in cycles like this, especially if they’re thinly capitalized. There’s also regulatory banking risk. There are banks right now, even before the tariff issue, that have gotten in a ditch with regulators. So, when we talk about risk, it’s way too early to say how the tariff situation will fully play out. But it has certainly placed risk management in the forefront of everyone’s mind.”
Leavitt concurred, noting that well-established solution providers can attract companies precisely because they offer a sense of security.
“Part of the role that we serve is to create trust,” he said. “When there’s uncertainty, there is a flight towards safety, across many different dimensions: economic safety, security. Our long-standing relationships with financial institutions mean they count on us to be consistent and safe.”
Keeping an Eye on Payments Modernization
Several years of disruption from COVID and geopolitical tensions have accelerated a trend toward modernizing payments. The adage, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” holds less sway in an environment where paper checks introduce delays and hamper transparency.
Both executives said the shift to digital forms of payment is well underway, with no sign of retreat.
“There’s nobody in my world saying, ‘We may go into a recession, let’s keep printing checks,’” Edwards said.
That might have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but digitization is now the rule rather than the exception, especially for real-time disbursements and commercial card payments, he said.
Leavitt said the contractual nature of B2B agreements means there may not be an immediate push for real-time settlement, but digitization is, nevertheless, accelerating. Suppliers may jump at faster settlement, particularly if it means guaranteeing quicker access to capital.
“A payment might be due in 30 days, but the buyer might typically pay in 45 or 60,” Leavitt said. “If suppliers can get paid at day 30 for agreeing to accept commercial cards or other digital solutions, they do it. That gives them a working capital advantage.”
Embracing new technology is a prime way to weather ups and downs.
“In an environment like this, the push to modernize payments and find new ways to optimize money flow is magnified because CFOs are asking themselves: ‘How do we stay relevant and cut costs — or even turn a cost center into a revenue center?’” Edwards said.
Comparing Today’s Uncertainty to COVID
Perhaps no benchmark stands out for abrupt disruption and uncertainty more than the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some parallels exist, such as sudden-almost-overnight supply chain backups, macroeconomic tremors, uncertainty about when there could be more certainty and sudden regulatory shifts, Leavitt and Edwards agreed this latest round of turmoil is not a repeat of those “bad old days.”
Where COVID locked down entire economies overnight, today’s environment involves incremental changes in cross-border tariffs, new regulations and the specter of a potential economic slowdown.
“The pandemic turned out to be a boom for the consumer side of the economy — money was flowing like crazy,” Edwards said. “We had parts of our business that skyrocketed because people needed money to move digitally, immediately. Now the worry is an actual reduction in overall demand if consumers and businesses get spooked. That’s a different issue.”
Yet both leaders said the pandemic taught businesses to be “scrappy,” as Webster put it. Those that pivoted to digital solutions and embraced new ways of moving money emerged leaner and more capable of handling the next big upset. That culture shift remains a source of optimism.
“If anything, this environment is shining a big bright light on the need to keep investing in modernization,” Edwards said. “Companies that do so are going to be in a better position than their competitors when the dust settles.”
Reason for Optimism
In a world where headlines warn of rising tariffs, cross-border tensions and inflationary pressures, a persistent question emerges: Will businesses clamp down and wait it out or charge ahead with digitization and innovation? As Leavitt and Edwards said, companies have learned from the shock of COVID that uncertainty is inevitable, but agility is a choice. By embracing modern payment solutions, optimizing the office of the CFO and doubling down on secure, trustworthy partnerships, businesses can navigate these tumultuous times.
“There’s reason for optimism,” Webster said, adding that “there are opportunities for those who find them and pursue them.”
When asked if another wave of uncertainty might upend business altogether, Edwards pointed back to lessons learned from the pandemic.
“It’s a different world than COVID, but businesses got scrappy then, and that’s not going away,” he said. “We’re all in better shape to handle the next storm.”
