About This Video
At the BAFT (Bankers Association for Finance and Trade) General Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) spoke with Ather Williams III, Head of Strategy, Digital, Innovation & Enterprise Payments at Wells Fargo.
Williams III said, “The strange thing about the payments market in the US is that we ask you to figure out how you want to pay. When you think about business-to-business payments in particular, we ask you to pick a rail and send us a file format for ACH versus same-day ACH versus wire transfers versus card payment. We’re finding that we can leverage some of the new technologies to optimise payments on behalf of our clients.”
Artificial intelligence, especially in its current form, is proving useful as a tool to help with business payments. AI is able to make decisions on behalf of the sender, optimising for liquidity, currency, and timing, without requiring someone to manually choose between a wire, an ACH, or a cheque.
Williams III said, “If you say who you want to pay, the amount, the currency, and the destination, then optimising that payment is the kind of thing that artificial intelligence is built for. And you don’t need the next generation of agentic AI or large language model because you can use core machine learning and do that.”
Of course, technology alone cannot carry change forward. It takes people.
Williams III said, “Innovation starts with people. The technologies are constantly changing. Two years ago, it was large language models. Three years before that, it was machine learning models. Now it’s agentic AI systems. That is going to continue to evolve at a very rapid pace. What will be more important is getting the people in the industry involved; The subject matter experts who understand the problems to be solved and where we can apply technology. How do we keep them abreast of the technology so it can enable them to do their jobs better?”
Key Topics
- Artificial intelligence in corporate payments
- Automation of receivables and cash application
- Optimising payment rails and cross border transactions
- Managing operational risk in digital payment systems
- Developing talent and knowledge in financial technology
Key Insights
Expert Analysis
Ather Williams III, Head of Strategy, Digital, Innovation and Enterprise Payments at Wells Fargo, highlights the growing role of artificial intelligence in reshaping how businesses move money. From the perspective of corporate treasurers, one of the most promising developments is the use of artificial intelligence to simplify the receivables process. Payments often arrive with information spread across different sources, including payment messages, invoices and shipping documents. Bringing these elements together allows companies to understand quickly who has paid, what the payment relates to and whether the amount is correct. On the payments side, Williams points to the opportunity to optimise how transactions are executed. Businesses are currently asked to decide whether to send a wire, an ACH payment, a cheque or a real time transfer. In practice, these decisions can be handled within the bank’s systems. By analysing the destination, currency and value of a transaction, technology can determine the most efficient route automatically. At the same time, innovation must be balanced with operational reliability. The priority for any payment system is straightforward: if a business expects to receive a payment or send one, the transaction must be processed on time. Artificial intelligence can support this by helping operations teams manage sanctions checks, resolve missing information and correct payment errors more consistently. Williams also emphasises that technology alone does not drive progress. The financial sector has seen rapid change, from machine learning to generative and agent based artificial intelligence, and this pace is unlikely to slow. Ensuring that professionals across banks and financial institutions understand how to apply these tools will be essential. For the industry, the real opportunity lies in equipping people with the knowledge needed to use technology to solve practical problems.
Key Findings
- Artificial intelligence can bring together structured and unstructured payment data to improve reconciliation.
- Payment execution can be optimised by analysing transaction details such as currency, destination and timing.
- Many existing payment infrastructures remain dependable but are gradually reaching the limits of their design.
- Operational teams benefit from technology that helps manage exceptions and resolve payment issues quickly.
- Continued progress in digital payments will depend on investment in both technology and people.
Implications
- Banks that adopt intelligent payment technologies may improve efficiency and service quality for corporate clients.
- More effective routing of payments could lower transaction costs and improve speed across payment networks.
- Automation is likely to shift the focus of operations teams towards oversight and exception management.
- Financial institutions will need to introduce new technology carefully while maintaining reliability in core systems.
- Industry collaboration and training will be vital to ensure professionals are equipped to use emerging tools.
Key Takeaways
- Artificial intelligence is becoming a practical tool for improving how businesses manage receivables and payments.
- Intelligent routing of payments can reduce friction across different payment networks.
- Automation can strengthen reliability by supporting operational teams and reducing manual processes.
- Payment systems must continue to balance innovation with stability and trust.
- Building knowledge across organisations will be essential as financial technologies continue to develop.
